


In Hot Pursuit

by Zara_Zee



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Ben is Dean's son, Implied Past Dean/Lisa - Freeform, M/M, Mentions of Other Criminal Activities, Murder, mentions of underage sex work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-11-29
Packaged: 2019-09-02 10:33:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 31,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16785214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zara_Zee/pseuds/Zara_Zee
Summary: Dean Winchester is a high school drop out with a GED and a give’em Hell attitude.  He’s also got an ex-wife demanding child support, a finance company on his ass about his overdue car repayments, and an eviction notice pending—he can’t keep dodging his landlord forever.One thing hedoesn’thave is a job, on account of him getting laid off four months ago—something hestillhasn’t told his family about.Times are tough and Dean is getting desperate. He needs cash fast, which is how he ends up working as a freelance skip tracer for sleazy bail bondsman Fergus ‘Crowley’ MacLeod.Dean’s first bail jumper is none other than local bad-boy-turned-good-cop, Castiel Novak—a man with whom Dean has history. Novak is a hot guy in hot water—wanted for murder—and to Dean he’s worth a ten grand fee. Is he guilty? Dean tells himself he doesn’t care. The only question worth asking is: will Dean get his man?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _**Disclaimer:** I don't own these characters and have merely misappropriated them for fun, not profit._
> 
> Written for LJ's SPN Cinema, for the movie **One for the Money** , the film adaption of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum novel of the same name: [IMDB](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1598828/)

Thirteen-year-old Dean Winchester figured out he wasn’t entirely straight, thanks to Castiel Novak.

Puberty had hit Dean with all the subtlety of a Mack truck and since then, he’d been happily making out with as many different girls as possible; Jamie Sward in the school’s dark room, Lydia Canning behind the bike shed, Amanda Heckerling in a janitor’s closet; good times, and lots of them.

On the Saturday when his epiphany struck, Dean and Robyn Desjardins had crept beneath the football stadium’s bleachers for a post-game make out session. They were both breathless with excitement and thrilled at their own daring—there were still some spectators sitting above them—when they came face-to- … well, _ass_ , with seniors Castiel Novak and Cole Trenton. Novak was on the wrestling team and Trenton was the football team’s star quarter back—both Big Men on Campus—so Dean’s mind was completely blown to find the duo engaged in a bump and grind session of the _don’t ask, don’t tell_ variety. Cole had been embarrassed, but Castiel had just smiled lazily. He’d met Dean’s wide, lust-blown eyes and told him he was too young for an orgy, but to come back in a few years and Castiel would teach him a thing or two.

The encounter left Dean flustered and confused. He _liked_ _girls_. He liked the way their boobs felt in his hands; the softness of their lips. But the look on Castiel’s face; the idea of rubbing off against another guy; it set Dean to thinking.

Mostly, what he thought was that his dad would kill him if he ever caught Dean messing around with another boy, because John Winchester was a man’s man.

A marine who saw action in Vietnam, John had worked as a mechanic until Dean’s mom had been killed in a house fire. The police eventually determined that the fire had been set by a serial arsonist who was out on bail, but Eli Azazel wasn’t at home when the cops went to re-arrest him and nor was he at his listed place of employment. When he failed to appear for his scheduled court date and his bail bondsman had no luck finding him either, Dean’s dad decided to find Azazel himself. 

When it came to fugitive tracking and apprehension, John Winchester turned out to be a natural and where the previous recovery agent had taken three months to find squat, John found Azazel in three weeks. Azazel had resisted apprehension and he and John got into a shootout, which left Azazel with a bullet lodged between his eyes. John still got a decent fee for finding him—the terms really were _dead or alive_ —and before long, he’d quit working at the garage and started his own business as a Fugitive Recovery Agent.

At first, Dean thought that his dad being a bounty hunter was the coolest thing ever. His dad was Boba Fett and Rick Deckard rolled into one and Dean wanted to be just like him. But all too quickly, John Winchester became consumed by the job and Dean and his little brother Sam found themselves shunted from babysitter to babysitter; Uncle Bobby and Aunt Karen one week, Aunty Ellen and Uncle Bill the next, Dad’s old business partner Mike Guenther and his wife Judy the week after that; even Pastor Jim had them stay with him up at the Rectory, every so often. Once, he took them in for a few _months_ when John was tracking down the leader of the local chapter of Hellhounds MC who’d failed to appear on a weapons trafficking charge.

It was Mike Guenther who finally threatened to call Children’s Services on John if he didn’t stop treating his kids like inconvenient pets and constantly dumping them on other people.

Things changed after that, and not for the better. John started taking Dean and Sam with him on jobs and, sure, he taught them hand-to-hand combat, how to strip down, clean and maintain weapons, how to fire several different types of gun, how to pick locks and how to field dress a gunshot wound; but Dean also learned that John was a mean drunk, quick to backhand his eldest son or take a belt to him for imagined misdemeanors.

Dean learned, too, how to keep Sam out of the line of fire, how to forge his dad’s signature on school enrolment paperwork and permission slips, how to prepare basic meals for himself and Sam and how to dodge the concern of school counsellors and social workers.

When Dean was fourteen, Dad carted them off to Kansas City for an extended stay while he was tracking down an embezzler who’d been ripping off a mob-owned business. The challenge for John was to find him and get him to court before the mob found him and put a bullet in his head, so he was even more distracted than usual.

At one point, John thought the mob was on his tail, hoping he’d lead them to the missing embezzler, so he rang Dean and said he wouldn’t be back to the motel for a while, but that he’d call in every day to check on them. Dean supposed his old man deserved some _good father_ points for not wanting the mob to know where his kids were.

“Are you boys okay?” he asked on day five. “Do you need anything?”

Dean bit at his bottom lip. “We need to pay for another week’s accommodation.”

“Use the emergency stash from the bottom of my duffle bag.”

Dean explained that he’d been using that for food and there was only fifty dollars left now, not enough to cover another week in the motel.

“I’ll call the manager,” Dad said. “Tell them to take it out of my credit card.”

Only Dad forgot to do that and the manager came banging on the door one night when the boys were in bed, demanding that they leave. Dean explained about the credit card. He tried to get his Dad on the phone to confirm he would accept the charges, but couldn’t raise him.

“Come with me,” the manager said to Dean. “We’ll sort this out in the office.”

In the office, the manager told Dean that he would put the credit card payment through without the cardholder’s say so, but that he was going to need a down payment from Dean, just in case the cardholder disputed the charges.

And so Dean learned how to give a blow job.

And when the last fifty dollars of Dad’s emergency stash ran out too and they needed money for food, Dean learned how to stand on a street corner and pick up tricks. He learned how to get the money up front the hard way. And he learned that getting arrested for solicitation was utterly humiliating.

As a result of that fiasco, John Winchester lost custody of his kids. Initially, Sam went to a foster family in Kansas City and Dean went to a group home, but behind the scenes, the bounty hunter community was working to bring them home.

A few years before John lost custody of Sam and Dean, a man who Uncle Bill had apprehended when he jumped bail had been released from prison—and promptly burned down The Roadhouse that Bill and Ellen owned in retaliation for his capture. Uncle Bill died in the fire, but Aunty Ellen and Cousin Jo escaped the blaze.

That very same year a car crash killed Aunt Karen and paralysed Uncle Bobby, effectively ending his bounty hunting days.

Aunty Ellen had lost her husband, her home and her business. Uncle Bobby had lost his wife, his job, and the use of his legs. It had just seemed sensible for Aunty Ellen and Jo to move in with Uncle Bobby, while he adjusted to life as a paraplegic. Uncle Bobby still did the occasional bit of research for other bounty hunters, and he and Aunty Ellen pooled their insurance money and used it to turn the salvage yard that Uncle Bobby had inherited from his parents into a going concern, with Ellen and Bobby doing all the office work and hiring Ash and Rufus to do all the leg work, so to speak.

By the time Sam and Dean needed a new home, Aunty Ellen and Uncle Bobby had been married for nearly two years and they took in the boys just as soon as they could get approved as foster carers.

It took a couple of years and Castiel Novak’s return from college for Dean’s bi-sexuality to re-emerge from hiding. Dean was sixteen years old when he bumped into Castiel at a party and allowed the older boy to charm his way into Dean’s pants. Cas sure knew his way around a guy’s body and while Dean was no stranger to giving blow jobs, he’d never gotten one from another guy and he’d never gone any further than that with a guy either. With Cas, he lost the only virginity he had left and had the most spectacular orgasm of his young life. Dean was in love. Or possibly just in lust. In any event, he wanted a lot more Cas-induced orgasms, so he was pissed, to say the least, when Cas told him that it’d been fun, but he was heading out to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego in the morning, and didn’t expect to be back in Coffeyville again any time soon.

Dean could fully understand wanting to leave Coffeyville and never look back. He might have been born and (mostly) raised in the small town, but he wasn’t blind to its faults. Coffeyville was nestled in the south west corner of Kansas and its one claim to fame was as the town that wiped out the infamous Dalton Gang in 1842.

As far as Dean could tell, it had been going downhill ever since. Coffeyville was the fourth most dangerous place in the whole state, with the third highest crime rate. It also had a twenty percent High School drop-out rate and families had an average annual income that was barely above the poverty line. Coffeyville regularly topped the list of “Most Ghetto Town in Kansas” too.

So yeah, Dean could understand Castiel wanting to leave, but to do so right after charming his way into Dean’s pants, with veiled hints that there could be a future for them, and then fucking him senseless—totally not cool.

Dean didn’t see Cas again for four years. He was a twenty-year-old High School drop-out at the time, working behind the counter at the Tasty Pastry Bakery, when Cas walked in and ordered a Chocolate Chip Cannoli.

Cas was back in town, because his old man had finally drunk himself into an early grave and his mom wanted him home. He leaned nonchalantly over the counter as he explained all this to Dean, his voice a sexy, low rumble that absolutely did not turn Dean on. At all. Really.

Cas’s smile was expectant and the expression on his face was calculating, as if he just arrogantly assumed that Dean was going to put out for him again, just as easily as he’d done as an innocent sixteen-year-old.

“So Dean,” Cas said, slipping behind the counter and prowling toward Dean with a predatory gleam in his eye. “How about we duck behind the éclair case for a little stress relief?”

“Stress relief,” Dean echoed. “Sure.”

And he punched Castiel Novak so hard in the face that Cas stumbled into the aforementioned éclair case and knocked it over.

The noise brought Dean’s boss, Johnny Kaminsky, running from the office out back.

“Is anything broken?” Johnny said, looking at the glass cabinet on the floor.

“Yeah,” said Cas. “My Goddamn nose!”

“Good,” Dean glowered.

“You’re a fucking lunatic,” Cas spat, pinching at his bloody nose.

“You! You!” sputtered Johnny, glaring daggers at Dean.

Dean took off his Tasty Pastry apron and threw it down on the counter.

“It’s okay, Johnny, I’ll see myself out.”

Dean would like to say that he didn’t make a habit of going around punching people who pissed him off, but that would be lying. So far, most of the guys who’ve had an up close and personal encounter with Dean’s fist have been honest enough to admit they probably had it coming and he hasn’t been charged with assault, yet.

\--

Ellen clears her throat and waves a hand in Dean’s face.

“Hello?” she says. “Did you hear what I just said? Detective Castiel Novak has been charged with murder!”

Dean blinks and drags his attention back to the present. He’s at Aunty Ellen’s Obligatory Wednesday (Extended) Family Dinner, which he likes to complain about being expected to attend, but that’s mostly just for show. Ellen makes a mean pot roast and her apple and cinnamon pie is to die for. Also, it makes a change from Graham crackers and Ramen noodles, which is about all he can afford at home these days.

“I heard you,” Dean says, “but I’m having trouble believing it. Cas drinks too much and he’ll nail anything with a pulse if it stays still long enough, but _murder_? No way. I don’t buy it.”

Dean shakes his head and plays with the label of his long neck beer.

Still, what does Dean know, really? He’s managed to avoid crossing Cas’s path for eight years. After Dean and Lisa got married, they moved out to Joplin, Missouri and, after a few false starts, Dean got a job working at Sandover Bridge and Iron, a construction company which has its headquarters in Ohio and several branch offices around the country. 

For the most part, it had been a decent job. Dean likes hard physical work. He likes making things. If he’s honest, Dean would’ve preferred to be a mechanic, but he would have needed a little more schooling for that. He had managed to get his GED at night school, but then he’d knocked Lisa up (yeah, it was a shotgun marriage, maybe not what he would’ve chosen, but he did the right thing) and after Ben came along he was too busy providing for his family to worry about chasing his own dreams. Of course, his boss, Zachariah Adler, had been a pretentious dick, and never more so than when Dean had needed time off to finalize his divorce and go to custody and child support hearings. In the end, he’d needed one day too many off and Adler had fired him, something he still hasn’t told his family about four months later. 

Sam clears his throat. “Wouldn’t be the first time a cop got a bit overzealous; thought he was above the law.”

Dean can’t argue with that and Jon Creedy—the guy Cas is accusing of shooting— _was_ a well-known local thug. He was at Carmen Porter’s apartment when Cas also paid her a visit, and somehow or other Cas ended up shooting Creedy dead. Dean vaguely knows Carmen because she’s been a waitress down at the Red for years. He wonders why both Cas and Creedy were at her place at the same time.

“Creedy was one of Nick Morningstar’s guys, wasn’t he?”

Ellen directs the question to Sam, because Dean’s little brother is an ADA for Montgomery County. At just twenty-four years of age, he’s their youngest too, handpicked by the new DA personally, but then Sam’s always been the smart one in the family.

“Yeah,” Sam’s gaze slides across to Dean who’s suddenly paying studious attention to the piece of roast potato on his fork.

Nick Morningstar aka Lucifer aka The Beast has fingers in every illegal pie in Montgomery County and ten years ago he had somehow managed to get hold of Dean’s sealed juvenile record.

Dean had been working the early shift at K & S at the time, ringing up people’s gas and selling them coffee to go. It wasn’t a career and it didn’t pay well, which was why he’d been spending a lot of his evenings pool hustling down at The Red Bar. The Red was a dive bar, through and through, with a jukebox that had a choice of country or hard rock, three pool tables and an aroma of spilled beer, tobacco smoke and frying food that after years on the road with his Dad had come to smell homey and comforting to Dean. The clientele were mostly bikers, truckers and young guys on the road to nowhere, like Dean himself. The few women in the joint who weren’t serving drinks, Dean suspected were working their own game. 

Morningstar had tried to harass Dean into adding sex work to his list of hustles, with a cut to go to Morningstar, of course.

Luckily for Dean, before he was forced into either giving in to The Beast’s demands or leaving town, Nick Morningstar was picked up for failing to appear on a DUI charge and subsequently remanded until his court case. By the time he was back on the street again, he’d lost interest in Dean and Dean made sure to stay out of his way after that. He quit his job at K & S, stayed away from The Red Bar and tried to stick to earning his money on the straight and narrow.

Nick Morningstar is bad news and privately, Dean thinks that Cas did the community a service by killing one of his lackeys. He doesn’t voice that thought though. Sam is an ADA; he has _opinions_ about due process.

“But lately,” Sam continues, “Creedy’d been working for Gordon Walker.”

Dean frowns. “The boxer?”

Sam nods. “Gordon’s managed by Marv Clerk over at the Buckeye Street Gym, and Creedy and Mike Kubrick are part of his security team.”

Dean’s mouth draws into a thin line. “Gordon Walker’s one hell of a boxer,” he says. “It’s so messed up that Morningstar’s crew managed to get their claws into him.”

Bobby’s right-hand man Rufus snorts. “He got a mean right hook, that’s for sure. But that boy is nine kinds of crazy. Maybe ten.”

“How do you know that?” Sam’s fiancée Jess asks.

“People talk. People say he’s got anger management issues. That the girls—and boys—he takes home for a little nooky sometimes end up in the hospital.”

“Really?” Jess looks aghast.

She’s a nurse down at the local hospital. Maybe she’s wondering if any of her patients have been a victim of Walker’s.

Rufus nods his head, his expression grim. “No-one ever reports him to the cops though. I guess they’re either too scared or they get paid off. Lotta people got big money riding on that guy,” he sighs. “Maybe Walker’s taken one too many knocks to the noggin or maybe he’s always been that way, but one thing I know for sure is that boy’s elevator don’t go up to the top floor.”

While Rufus is talking there’s a knock on the front door and Jo gets up to answer it. She’s ringing her hands when she comes back into the kitchen and Dean immediately sees why. Mike Gunther has followed her inside.

“Sorry Dean,” he says, handing Dean the repossession notice for his truck that Dean’s been dodging for a while now.

“Mike?” Ellen’s hands are on her hips, her lips pursed. “What in the Sam Hill is goin’ on?”

Mike shakes his head. “Ain’t my place to say, Ellen.”

Dean can’t look at any of them as he takes the key to his truck off of his key ring and hands it over to Mike.

“Dean?” Sam says.

Dean recognizes that tone of voice and his stomach flip-flops. It’s the tone Sam uses when he realizes that his drop-out loser of a brother has fucked up again.

“Sorry, Dean,” Mike repeats and he genuinely sounds it.

Bobby and Rufus go outside with Mike to watch Mike haul Dean’s Silverado away on his tow truck. Dean sits at the table with his head down and wishes the floor would swallow him whole.

“Dean, honey?” Ellen says. “What’s going on?”

“Are you gambling again?” Sam says sharply.

“Sam!” Jess scolds, smacking Sam’s arm, as Dean flinches at Sam’s accusation.

It hurts, but he supposes he deserves it.

He shakes his head. “Things’ve been tight since the divorce,” he says. “I missed a couple car payments.”

He can feel Sam staring a hole in the side of his head.

“I get that,” Sam says. “But you earn good money--”

Dean’s harsh laugh stops his brother.

“I did, yeah. But Adler fired me, Sammy. Four months ago,” Dean raises his eyes challengingly. “Said I’d become _unreliable_.”

“Had you?” Sam asks.

Dean has to pretend that question doesn’t hurt too. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath and reminds himself of all the times in his younger years that he’d been fired for being too drunk to go in to work. Sam has every right to ask the question.

“No,” he says. “I had a lot of court cases, a lot of custody hearings and meetings with social workers about Ben and…I ran outta leave days. After I took three days leave without pay, he refused to approve any more. Said any more days would be viewed as unauthorized absences. I had no choice. I had to go to the hearings. What was I supposed to do?”

“You were supposed to ask your family for help,” Ellen says and she sounds upset.

Dean, finally, turns to face the woman who’s been like a mom to him. Ellen has tears in her eyes, but she looks pissed too.

“I’m sorry,” Dean says. “It’s just…Sammy had just been appointed ADA, and he and Jess had just bought their first house, and I know, with the way the economy’s going, you guys ain’t making a lot of money here. I just…I didn’t want to be a burden.”

When Rufus and Bobby come back inside there’s a Family Discussion and Dean gets a truckload of ‘idjit’ from Bobby and a couple of whacks upside the back of his head too.

Sam tries to get Dean to move in with him and Jess, but Dean refuses. Sam and Jess are just starting out; they’ve got a wedding coming up. The last thing they need is Sam’s unemployed, loser big brother in their faces 24/7.

Bobby and Ellen try to insist that he comes to work at the scrap yard, but he refuses that too. He already knows from Jo that they’re barely making ends meet. He refuses to be the burden that tips them over the poverty line.

Dean feels raw and drained by the time his family is done with him. And it’s not that they were nasty about the mess he’s got himself into. Quite the opposite, in fact; it’s their compassion and willingness to sacrifice for him that leaves Dean feeling like he’s been scraped over gravel. It’s clearly time to make a strategic retreat; which is when Dean runs into what is, in retrospect, a fairly obvious problem.

He doesn’t have a car any more.

Dean’s standing beside the kitchen table holding his keys—sans car key—in his hand, staring at his keyring as if it holds all the answers to the universe’s eternal questions.

He actually got this keyring from Sammy for his sixteenth birthday. It’s a pentagram in a circle made of pure silver. Sammy said it was for protection; to keep him safe on the roads.

Bobby clears his throat. “Gonna need some wheels, son,”

He takes out his own fat bunch of keys and takes a silver key off it. He hands it to Dean who takes it with a frown, turning it over in his hand. It’s a square key, embossed with the letters GM and it takes Dean far too long to get it. Once he does, he all but throws the key down onto the table.

“No,” he shakes his head.

“He left it for you, son,” Bobby says patiently.

Dean can’t seem to stop shaking his head.

“What’s going on?” Jess ventures.

Sam explains to her that on Dean’s eighteenth birthday their father had turned up and tried to give Dean his old car, a black 1967 Chevrolet Impala.

“Okay?” Jess says and Dean can tell by the tone of her voice that she doesn’t really get it.

“When our house burned down,” Dean says, “we sat on the hood of that car and watched. Sammy was just a baby and I held him in my arms and watched our whole life go up in flames. And then later, when Dad was moving us around all the time, sometimes we lived in that car, for days. We practically grew up in that car. We carved our initials into the door. We shoved army men into the air vent. It was _home_. After everything he put us through. After _losing_ us, he turns up the day I’m legally an adult and tries to give me _home_.”

Jess winces. “Ouch,” she says.

Dean nods sombrely. “Right? Sam thinks I overreacted.”

Sam snorts indignantly. “Dude, the way you were screaming at him made Bobby wheel himself out onto the porch with his shotgun!”

“So maybe _I’m_ the one who overreacted,” Bobby says. “Point is, you, son,” he nods at Dean, “need a car. And whatever else she may be, the Impala 67 is a good car.”

She is that, and the fact of the matter is that Dean needs wheels. He needs them to look for work and he needs them to collect Ben for access visits.

So, reluctantly, Dean picks up the car key and follows Bobby out to the shed where the impala’s been locked up and hidden under a tarpaulin for the past ten years.

“I kept her serviced,” Bobby says. “Kept up the registration and insurance too. And Ellen took her out on a few runs. She’ll do right by you.”

Sam came out with them, after a significant look from Jess, and he helps Dean take the tarpaulin off. Dean swallows as the Impala’s sleek black curves come into view and he can’t help running his hand over her hood. She’s just as beautiful as he remembers.

He can’t deny the lump in his throat as he unlocks the driver’s side door and slides in behind the steering wheel. He unlocks the passenger side on reflex and it feels right when Sammy climbs in beside him.

“Look,” Sam picks up a box that’s balanced on the center console. “It’s the same old box of cassette tapes from when we were kids! Oh. And there’s an envelope. Addressed to you.”

Dean takes the envelope from Sam. He recognizes his Dad’s handwriting and for a brief moment he considers salting and burning the letter, but then he figures there might be something he needs to know about the car in it, so he tears open the envelope, like ripping off a Band-Aid, scans the contents of the letter and snorts. He flicks open the glovebox and finds another box inside it, this one with a bunch of fake ids, all in his name, and a lock-pick set in a nice leather wallet. There’s a plain white business card in there too, for a Frank Deveraux, with his Dad’s scrawl on the back simply saying, _for when you need some for Sam_.

Dean snorts. “Wow,” he says. “It looks like Dad was planning on having us take up where he left off. You know; bounty hunting people. The family business.”

Sam wrinkles his nose. “As a business motto it’s really missing something.”

Dean nods.

“And as an ADA, skip tracing isn’t really something I can be involved in anyway.”

Dean nods again.

Sam’s eyes are strangely alight and Dean isn’t sure he likes the appraising way his little brother is looking at him.

“But _you_ could do it,” Sam says. “It’d actually be kind of perfect for you. You could work your own hours, be there for Ben whenever he needs you, no boss breathing down your neck and, dude, you _know_ how to do this. Hell, we were practically _raised_ to do this.”

Dean rubs the back of his neck. Sammy’s not wrong. He’s probably rusty as fuck, but he does know how to do this. He still needs a bail bondsman to hire him on though. That’s not the only problem either.

“Ellen would kill me,” he says and Sam’s face falls.

“Yeah,” Sam says. “Well, it’s something to think about. You know, if you get really desperate.”

Half an hour later the Impala roars into the parking lot of Dean’s apartment block and he sees at least a dozen curtains twitch. Subtle, the Impala is not.

Dean parks in the Visitors’ section, because he needs to sneak his way into his apartment past Chuck Shurley, the building’s superintendent, who’s been trying to give him a final notice about his past due rent for over a week now.

Dean enters his apartment via the fire escape and his living room window. He applies online for twenty-eight jobs, and then cleans out Ratus McRatface’s cage.

Ratus McRatface is Ben’s pet rat. The kid had been going through a Harry Potter phase and he’d decided that if couldn’t have a pet owl, then a pet rat like Ron had was the next best thing. For Ben’s first birthday after Dean and Lisa separated, Dean bought him Ratus, and the way his son’s face had lit up? After all the turmoil of the split, making Ben smile like that again was worth everything to Dean. Lisa, though, refused to have any kind of rodent in her house, which is how Ratus McRatface ended up living with Dean.

For the most part, Ratus is an undemanding housemate. He makes nests and tunnels in his hay, runs in his wheel, stuffs his face with rat pellets and happily scoffs down the tiny chunks of fresh fruit and vegetables that Dean cuts for him. How Dean managed to be rooming with a fresh fruit and veg junkie again is beyond him. Dean wanted to call the rat Sam, but Ben’s choice prevailed. 

Ratus is also a good listener when Dean wants to complain over a couple of beers about the unfairness of his life.

Later that night, Dean’s watching some crappy show about vampires on the CW (he had to cancel his Netflix subscription) when his cell phone rings.

It’s Benny, who’s been a buddy of Dean’s since high school. Benny’s married to Andrea who’s good friends with Jo and it’s clear as soon as Dean picks up the phone that Benny’s already got the low down on Dean’s financial situation. Dean knows Jo means well, but his little sister is going to get it with both barrels tomorrow.

Benny sympathizes and Dean deflects, ruefully, and makes several attempts to change the subject. Benny though, rang with a purpose and he won’t be dissuaded until he’s said his piece.

“So listen, brother,” he says, “do you remember Fergus McLeod?”

Dean thinks back on his high school days, vaguely remembers a short stocky Goth guy with a British accent. 

“Wore a black trench coat and Doc Martens, even in summer?” Dean says. “Weird kid, into that whole Goth scene and Satanism, but strangely charismatic. Wanted everyone to call him Crowley?”

“That’s the one,” Benny confirms. “He came back to town a few years after you and Lisa moved to Joplin. He’s a bail bondsman now and his firm’s got a good reputation.”

Dean glowers. So Sam’s in on it too. Goddamn younger siblings telling everyone your private business.

“You know a bit about that line of work, don’t you Dean?”

“A bit,” Dean says. Gruffly.

“Well then that’s a lucky break for you, brother, because one of Crowley’s long time skip tracers, Tim Cain, had to have his appendix out yesterday, which means Crowley’s out a hunter at a time when he really needs all hands on deck.”

Dean frowns. “Why does he need all hands on deck right now?”

There’s a pause and then Benny says. “Crowley’s the one put up Castiel Novak’s bail at his arraignment,” Benny’s a police officer, so that’s the kind of thing he’d know. “And word on the street is that Cas has gone missing; that he ain’t gonna turn up to his grand jury indictment hearing tomorrow.”

Dean makes a mental note to ask Sammy for a quick refresher on the US court system and then asks Benny if he knows what Cas’s bail was set at.

“One million big ones,” Benny says. “Which means he’s worth ten grand to whoever brings him in.”

Dean whistles. Ten grand. Huh. He could do with ten grand.

Maybe he should hold off going after Jo and Sammy with both barrels. Maybe he should send them both a fruit basket instead. 


	2. Chapter 2

Dean doesn’t remember a whole lot about Crowley, but one thing he does remember is the covetous way Crowley stared at his ass. Crowley hadn’t dated anyone, not in sophomore year, and not in junior year. _Maybe_ he’d dated in senior year, but Dean dropped out after first term, so he isn’t in a position to know. Still, the point remained that he had seemed to enjoy staring at Dean’s ass and Dean is always happy to objectify himself for a good cause.

Which is why he’s putting on his tightest pair of blue jeans, along with a blue and red plaid shirt that Lisa always used to say ‘made his eyes pop’ and his best pair of black Doc Martens.

He’s just styling his hair when a knock at the door makes him freeze.

He’s already lost the car, so it can’t be the auto repossession people, he isn’t behind on child support—yet, his credit card is maxed out and he’s missed a payment, but they won’t be sending debt collectors at this point, which means it’s probably Chuck, trying to deliver that final notice. Fuck.

“Stop primping in front of the mirror, Dean Winchester,” says the disembodied and somewhat amused voice of Missouri Moseley, “and come open this door. I ain’t out here for your money. Not that you’ve got any.”

The Mysterious Miss Moseley reads palms and tells fortunes from the spare bedroom of her apartment, just down the hall from Dean. Dean doesn’t believe in that sort of thing, but even he has to admit that Missouri is spookily accurate a lot of the time.

“Oh Honey,” Missouri says when Dean opens the door to her, “are you sure that’s a good idea? Because I can tell you right now, you dangle yourself in front of Crowley like a tasty worm and he _will_ take a bite.”

Dean’s chin hits the floor “How do you _do_ that?”

Missouri pats him on the arm as she walks past him into his apartment. “I’m _psychic_ , sweetheart. Just because you don’t believe, don’t make it untrue.”

“I just dropped by to tell you a couple of things. Firstly, Chuck’s in the final throes of his new book and he’s been drinking like a fish, so you’ve probably got a few days where you don’t have to worry about him trying to deliver that final rent notice to you.”

Maybe she _is_ psychic. Either that or she has the whole building wired with spy cameras.

“And secondly, you need to speak to Pamela.”

Dean frowns. “Pamela? _Pamela_ Pamela? Why?”

“Crowley’s a client of hers. It’s gonna take a little more than your pretty face to talk Crowley into giving you a job. And by a little more, I mean blackmail.”

Dean’s eyebrows hit the ceiling. “Blackmail? Where the hell is all this coming from, Missouri?”

Miss Moseley looks distinctly unimpressed. “You watch your language, young man. I have a wooden spoon, you know, and I ain’t afraid to use it,” she waits a beat and then sighs. “And how many times do I have to tell you, boy? I’m _psychic_.”

Dean is starting to believe that maybe she really is.

Pamela lives exactly one floor up from Dean, so it isn’t exactly out of his way to pay her a visit. She gives him a lecherous once over when she opens the door to him and then grins.

“Well now,” she says. “Look at you all dressed up. I know you’re not trying to impress me; you’ve got that whole no cash for ass rule. So who’s the lucky gal? Or guy?”

Dean rolls his eyes. “Do you have a minute, Pam? Missouri said I should talk to you about Crowley.”

Pamela raises an eyebrow and looks at him with just a hint of uncertainty in her expression. “C’mon in,” she says.

“Why do you want to know about Fergus?” she asks when they’re settled at her kitchen counter, each with a cup of coffee. “You ain’t planning on stealing him off me, are you?”

Dean can tell she’s mostly joking.

Pamela’s line of work isn’t exactly a secret in the apartment block, but it’s enough of a low rent area that for the most part, her neighbors pretend to buy into the fiction that she’s a massage therapist. She even has one of those tables with a face hole in it. 

On occasion, Dean has to redirect a lost client who’s got off the elevator on the wrong floor and knocked on his door by mistake. He doesn’t mind and he certainly doesn’t judge. It’s not like he has a moral leg to stand on anyway.

Pam had come down to his place after Dean had helpfully sent the third lost client her way. She’d apologised and offered him a freebie as compensation. This had led to the no cash for ass, even if there’s no actual cash involved conversation, followed by an evening of drinking, pizza, and then more drinking, during which Dean had accidentally confessed that he wasn’t _entirely_ inexperienced when it came to Pam’s line of work, and that it had been a matter of necessity, not choice, at a time when he’d been far too young to be put in that position. Pam had been furious on his behalf and they’ve been friends ever since. 

Dean shakes his head. “Nope, not planning on stealing him. I want him to give me a job as a bounty hunter, but he might take some…persuading.”

Pam narrows her eyes and Dean does his very best lost puppy impersonation. It’s not quite as good as Sam’s, but it is effective, if the way Pam’s expression softens is anything to go by. 

“Okay,” she says. “Hold on a minute.”

She’s back quickly with a couple of letter-sized sheets of paper.

“You can’t tell him you got these from me, okay?”

Dean promises that he won’t tell.

She puts them down on the coffee table in front of Dean and Dean’s eyes go wide.

“Really?

Pam nods. “You should threaten to show his wife.”

Dean’s jaw drops. “His _wife_? Someone married him?”

“It’s a marriage of convenience. Rowena needed a green card, Crowley needed a mommy.”

“A…mommy?”

Pam smirks. “Crowley’s a complicated man. I look after Puppy. Rowena takes care of his mommy issues.”

Dean shakes his head. “And I thought I was messed up.”

Pam puts a hand on his arm. “He’ll fold like a cheap suit when you show him these. For all his faults, he’s not a bad guy. Not really. So please, once he gives you the job, don’t show anyone these, don’t even tell anyone about them, okay?”

\--

King Crowley Bail Bonds is across the road and half a block down from the court house, which makes it convenient for anyone suspecting that they might need to post bail in the near future. It also makes it convenient for Dean who’s just finished an impromptu visit with Sam to get an update on the US court system and the latest courthouse gossip on Castiel Novak. Apparently Sam’s boss is really gunning for him, which doesn’t make a lot of sense to Dean—DAs are usually hellbent on _clearing_ the names of the cops in their jurisdictions. But whatever, maybe it’s an election thing. Be seen to be cracking down on overzealous cops.

The woman at the front desk doesn’t even look up when Dean comes in, causing the front door’s alert bells to jangle enthusiastically.

“Good morning,” she says in a rich Scottish brogue when he reaches the reception desk. She hands him a clipboard. “Fill this out please,” she finally looks up at him and her eyes widen appreciatively as she looks him up and down. “Let me guess,” she says. “Drunk and disorderly?”

Dean looks down at the form attached to the clipboard and shakes his head. “I’m not looking to post bail. I need to talk to Crowley.”

The woman folds her arms across her chest and sizes him up with narrowed eyes. “About?”

“A private matter. Just tell him Dean Winchester wants to see him.”

She does, begrudgingly and Crowley agrees to see him, but he makes Dean wait.

Dean stands in the tiny reception area alternatively looking at Crowley’s bail bondsman licence hanging crookedly on the wall and the dusty plastic potted palm tree in the corner. He takes occasional surreptitious glances at the redhead at the reception desk. It’s fifteen minutes before Crowley finally saunters out. He’s wearing a black suit with a dark grey tie and he’s stockier than Dean remembers him. Still, it has been a few years.

“Dean Winchester,” Crowley singsongs. “The denim-wrapped nightmare himself.”

Dean frowns. “Uh, excuse me?”

Crowley narrows his eyes. “You made my high school years a living hell, Dean: So popular; so handsome; so sure of yourself. You were the bad boy with the smart mouth and the heart of gold. All the girls wanted you, all the boys wanted to be you. Except for me,” Crowley very obviously checks out Dean’s ass. “I wanted to _do_ you, but while you slutted around with every girl you could, you wouldn’t put out for a boy, not until that blessed _angel_ came along.”

Okay, Dean is completely lost. “Angel?”

Crowley rolls his eyes. “Castiel? The Angel of Thursday. Don’t tell me you didn’t notice that all the kids in that family are named after an angel? Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Anael, Castiel?”

Dean shakes his head. “I never went to Sunday School, Crowley,” he waves the envelope he’s carrying at Crowley. “So listen, I got something I need to talk to you about. Could we go into your office?”

It’s a nice office, with a mahogany desk and a large, high-backed leather chair for Crowley. When he sits down, he looks a little like a king on his throne.

“So. Dean,” Crowley folds his hands on top of the desk. “What can I do for you?”

“I want you to give me a job.”

Crowley stares at him and then he laughs. “I see. And why would I do that?”

Dean would like to do this without resorting to blackmail if he can, so he reminds Crowley that he’s the son of a well-known, very successful bounty hunter and the foster son of two more equally well-known and successful, although now retired bounty hunters, and that even though he hasn’t been in the life now for quite some time, he was brought up in it.

Crowley sighs. “Dean, you’re twenty-eight. You’ve been working in construction for the past six years and before that you pumped gas and sold pastries and got fired a lot for being drunk. I don’t care what experience other people you know have got, I care what experience _you’ve_ got and you, my friend, have got _no professional bounty hunting experience._ ”

Crowley’s last few words are practically shouted.

Dean nods. “That may be true. But one thing I do have, is these,” he puts the envelope down on the table and slides it across to Crowley. “You might wanna take a look.”

Crowley looks. His face remains impassive. When he looks up again, Dean can see the resignation in his eyes. “When do you want to start?”

“How about today?”

Crowley nods. “I’ll have Rowena get your employment paperwork started. And then we’ll find an easy little FTA for you to cut your teeth on.”

Dean shakes his head. “I want to bring in Castiel Novak.” 

Crowley splutters with laughter. “Good one, Dean, you always were a funny guy.”

Dean raises an eyebrow.

“Oh. You were serious? Sorry, Dean. No way. Detective Novak is worth a lot of money. I need a _real_ professional on him. I’m going to give him to Victor Henricksen.”

“Huh,” Dean fakes a sad smile. “Then I guess I’m going to have to give these,” he hefts the envelope, “to your wife.”

Crowley stares. “You wouldn’t. I gave you a job!”

Dean just sits and looks at him.

Crowley sighs. “Okay, fine. You’ve got a week, okay? And then I’m giving him to Victor. Deal?”

“Deal.”

The redheaded receptionist turns out to be Crowley’s wife Rowena and Dean finds that he quite likes her, along with a side order of being just a little bit scared of her.

Together they fill out his W-4 and his I-9, followed by the paperwork for a really comprehensive health insurance policy.

“And given the likelihood that you’ll get shot or stabbed or both doing this job,” Rowena says blithely, “you’re gonae need this. Especially if you’re going after Detective Novak.”

She hands him the file. “Castiel only went FTA this morning. I’m surprised Fergus didn’t give him to Victor.”

Dean just gives her a sunny smile, takes the paperwork and leaves. If Dean knows Cas, and he does, he’ll be hiding out somewhere and he’ll turn to his brother Gabriel to help him out. Dean drives to Gabriel’s apartment, parks a little way down the road and waits. 

A couple of hours later, he’s seen nothing of Gabriel and he’s starving hungry. Maybe he should go and get a burger? He’s just reaching out to turn the key in the ignition when Gabriel rides out of the apartment complex on a red and black Harley Davidson Road King. It’s a nice bike and Dean takes a moment to appreciate it, before pulling out and following him to a boarded-up, white clapboard house in the bad part of town. Dean guesses the bank probably foreclosed on the mortgage, but the market being the way it is, they haven’t been able to sell it, which makes it a good hideaway. 

Gabriel takes a pot out of one of his bike’s side saddles, looks around furtively and then skirts around to the back of the house. Dean opens the glovebox, gets out the lock-pick set and puts it in his inside jacket pocket. He waits until Gabriel leaves and then he gets out of the car, goes around to the trunk and opens it. The Impala’s trunk has a false bottom and underneath it, Dad always kept a huge assortment of weapons and other useful tools of the bounty hunter trade.

Dean pries open the false bottom and stares, open-mouthed.

“Son of a bitch,” he swears.

The secret compartment is completely empty.

Dean slams the secret compartment shut. Should he abort? Or should he attempt to apprehend Castiel without so much as a knife, let alone a gun? He doesn’t even have a pair of handcuffs. Something nestled in the corner of the trunk catches his eye and Dean grins. He does, however, have duct tape. He picks it up, pockets it, and then creeps around to the back of the house and gets inside via a busted back door; no lock-picking required.

Castiel is sitting on a folding chair at a card table eating something steaming hot out of the casserole pot that Gabriel had brought him. Beside him on the floor are an air mattress, a sleeping bag, and a couple of duffle bags.

He looks up when Dean walks in and his eyes widen.

“Hello, Dean,” he says in the same gravelly voice that always causes little Dean to stir with interest.

Cas looks good. He’s casually dressed in light blue jeans and a grey tee-shirt with a dark blue shirt over the top of it. His almost-black hair is sleep tousled, but he looks awake and alert.

“Cas,” Dean nods.

“I heard about you and Lisa,” Cas says. “I’m sorry. How’s Ben taking it?”

“About as well as you’d expect,” Dean edges slowly toward Castiel. “Thanks for asking.”

As he gets closer a distinctive scent hits his nostrils and his stomach rumbles. Dean pauses and takes a subtle sniff.

“Ooh, is that your Mama’s home-cooked _Golabki_?”

Cas nods. “Yeah, she’s a firm believer that you shouldn’t go on the run on an empty stomach. Dean…what are you doing here?”

“Oh,” Dean takes the duct tape out of his pocket. “I’m here to take you in.”

Cas stares at him with a politely interested look on his face and then he laughs.

“Oh, you’re serious?”

Dean nods. “I’m working as a fugitive recovery agent these days.”

Cas’s eyes widen and he looks concerned. “For your dad?”

Dean scowls and shakes his head. “For Fergus Mcleod.”

Cas raises and eyebrow. “You’re working for _Crowley_?” he shakes his head. “Damn. I thought you had more self-respect than that.”

Dean’s glare darkens. He peels back a strip of duct tape. “I can’t afford self-respect at the moment,” he says. “Maybe when I’ve got my fee for bringing you in I’ll be able to get myself some.”

Cas lowers his spoon and puts the lid back on the casserole dish before standing up.

“Sorry, Dean,” he says. “I’ve got too much to do to waste any more time on you.”

He reaches behind himself and before Dean even has time to think _oh shit, he’s got a gun_ there’s a crackling noise, a wire flies at him and Dean’s whole body locks tight as his torso is seared with agony. He falls to the floor and everything goes black.

Cas is long gone when Dean comes to. He’s got a lump on the back of his head and a bloody lip and he feels dizzy, disoriented and his head aches something fierce.

He sits up slowly and sighs. “Sonofabitch tasered me,” he mutters.

Stole his roll of duct tape too.

At least he didn’t pee himself.

The card table’s still in the room and the casserole dish is still there too. There’s also a bottle of _Evian_ and a folded piece of white paper.

_Dean, I’m sorry. Make sure you have something to eat and drink before you leave and I don’t want you driving until you stop feeling shaky. C._

Mama Novak’s _Golabki_ is every bit as good as Dean remembers it and the water refreshes him and helps ease his headache. It’s a good half hour before he feels safe enough to drive and he takes the empty casserole dish with him when he goes.

Dean’s first stop is Guardhouse Warehouse where he makes his wallet considerably lighter buying a pair of handcuffs and the cheapest taser they have. 

Next he goes down to Tasty Pastry and cleans his wallet our completely buying a box of their finest doughnuts, along with two cups of coffee. He then heads into the precinct to see Benny, who eyes the doughnuts appreciatively (Dean knows through Jo that Andrea’s got him on a diet) and agrees that sure, he’s got time for a coffee. 

“I tried to bring Novak in today,” Dean says.

Benny nearly chokes on his coffee. When he’s finished coughing and spluttering he wipes the back of his hand across his mouth and looks at Dean with something close to respect. “You actually found him?”

“Sure,” Dean shrugs. “Novak ain’t that complicated if you know him.”

“And you _know_ him, don’t you brother?” Benny says with a smirk. “In the Biblical sense.”

Dean’s eyes widen. “What the fuck, man?”

Benny holds his hands out. “Whoa, chill, brother. It ain’t a big deal.”

Dean’s heart is still somersaulting. “It ain’t common knowledge either.”

“We’ve been friends a long time, Dean. So what if you bat for the other team?”

Dean never imagined that he’d come out to his best friend in the middle of a police precinct. “I bat for both teams,” he says, then tries to make light of it. “When you’re this hot,” he spreads his arms, “it’s not fair to deprive either side of your charms.”

Benny grins and helps himself to another doughnut. ”Not as good as my Mama’s beignets, but still pretty good,” he sinks his teeth into the sugary dough, a look of bliss on his face.

“How did you figure that me and Cas...” Dean trails off.

“I used to be on the High School wrestling team with Cas,” Benny shrugs. “We caught up right before he left to go into the Marines and he…might’ve mentioned something about…you. He was…pleased with himself. Made a few…comments.”

Dean scowls. “Sonofabitch.”

Benny chuckles. “I don’t judge. But back to Cas. How did he get away?”

Dean manages a rueful smile. “Asshole tasered me.”

Benny laughs. “Yeah that sounds like Cas. He can be ruthless when he needs to be.”

Dean asks if there’s anything more Benny can tell him about the case. He already knows from Sam and the file Crowley gave him that Cas had gone to Carmen Porter’s apartment for reasons unknown, he knows that Cas shot Jon Creedy dead inside Carmen’s apartment and that Carmen has been missing ever since. He knows that Cas claims Creedy shot at him, although no gun was recovered, and he knows that Cas also claims there was another guy there, someone he didn’t recognize, and that he must’ve taken the gun when Cas got knocked unconscious by one of Carmen’s neighbors.

Benny nods. “That’s all correct, brother. Did you know that Carmen is Cas’s CI?”

“CI?”

“Confidential Informer. I shouldn’t tell you that, but it could be relevant. Maybe Cas visited Carmen because she had information for him and someone wanted to stop her talking. Or maybe it was a trap. Point is, Cas can be a little unorthodox sometimes, but when it comes to the things that matter, the guy is a straightshooter. If he says there was another guy there, I believe him.”

Dean nods. “So if you were in Cas’s shoes, what would you do next?”

“I’d be tryin’a find the other guy. And the missing gun.”

Dean nods again. It makes sense. “So if I work the same case as him, then I’ve got a good chance of crossing paths with him.”

Benny licks sugar off his lips. “You be careful, brother.” 

Dean has just sat behind the Impala’s steering wheel when his cell phone rings. It’s Ellen and for a moment he seriously considers not answering, but he can’t avoid this conversation for ever so he presses talk.

“Hi Mom,” he says.

Ellen snorts. “Don’t you try to butter me up, _son_ , I know what you’re up to. Bobby’s been real cagey since you took that car and not ten minutes ago I got a phone call from Joyce Boyd down at State Farm Insurance. She saw you go into the Guardhouse Warehouse opposite their office. Says you came out with a big bag too.”

Fuck. Goddamn nosy, meddling gossips.

“It wasn’t anything dangerous,” Dean says placatingly, “just a taser,”

“A _taser_?! Ellen screeches. “Tasers can cause heart attacks! Tasers can kill people! Tasers aren’t _not dangerous_!”

“I’ll be careful with it, I promise. Look…I’m just trying to earn some money.”

Ellen cuts him off before he can get any further. “The Gas’n’sip is hiring.”

Now it’s Dean turn to snort. “Seriously? Am I sixteen? Look, Ellen, I know you’re worried, and I get it. But I can do this. You know I can. Dad trained me and Sam real well from when we were really young. And the kind of money I can make doing this…I can’t turn that down.”

Ellen sighs. “It’s John Winchester’s training I’m afraid of. The man’s made some damn fool, reckless decisions during his career. I know you idolized him for a long time, Dean, but the thought of you following in his footsteps terrifies me.”

It’s true. For a long time, Dean _did_ idolize his father. He even made excuses for the man when Dean was forced to blow strangers for money just to keep him and Sam fed. Dad’s job was important, he would tell himself, he has to catch the bad guys to keep people safe. It was like a mantra, one he repeated to himself over and over when he was down on his knees in a dirty alley or truck stop carpark. _Dad keeps people safe, he hunts bad guys_. _It’s my job to take care of Sam._

Dean has done a lot of re-evaluating his childhood in the last few years—since he had Ben, mostly. He’s come to understand that Ellen, Bobby and the various counsellors and social workers that Children’s Services made him see were right. His childhood was messed up, because John Winchester put his kids at risk to satisfy his furious need for revenge. He should never have been put in a position where he had to support himself and Sam while Dad was gone; should never have had to make the sacrifices he made, and while Dean decided a long time ago that he was never going to be ashamed of the things he had to do to make sure his little brother had food to eat and a safe place to sleep, that doesn’t mean he’s not angry about it.

Dean knocked John Winchester off his pedestal a long time ago. 

Dean promises Ellen that he’ll be careful, that he won’t follow in his father’s footsteps, and he promises to bring Ben to see her this coming weekend. She’s…well, she’s not really mollified, but she lets it go.

Having washed Mama Novak’s casserole dish in the Precinct’s break room, Dean undertakes an extremely dangerous mission. He heads out to Cas’s childhood home to return said dish and to ask Cas’s mom a few questions.

Naomi Novak is pleased to see Dean on her doorstep in the way that children are pleased when summer break ends; not at all. She scowls in the face of his most charming smile and takes the casserole dish from him with bad grace.

“I gave this to Gabriel. What are you doing with it?”

Dean tells her the tale and Naomi looks quietly satisfied at the news that Castiel had tasered him. She refuses to invite Dean in and she refuses to talk about Cas at all.

“I have nothing to say to you Dean Winchester,” she says, hands on hips. “And you ought to be ashamed of yourself, working for that sleaze Fergus McLeod, trying to bring my Castiel in. He’s a good boy. He’s on the side of the angels, and you,” she wags a finger at him, “don’t think I don’t know all about you!”

“Uh, what?” Dean says, brow furrowing at the unexpected comment she’s just thrown his way like a hand grenade.

“I know all about your _history_ , young man. And I know how you tried to seduce my Castiel just before he joined the Marines, you…you… _Lolita_ you! So you leave my boy alone!”

She slams the door in his face, leaving Dean blinking at an arched frosted-glass panel, with his jaw hanging open.

“Fuck,” he mutters. “And I was sixteen,” he tells the closed door, defiantly. “ _He_ seduced _me_.”

The late afternoon sun is dipping toward the horizon, so Dean decides to call it a day and head for home. Remembering what Missouri said about Chuck drinking like a fish, he chances the apartment building’s front door and even stops by the mailboxes. All the envelopes in his box have window faces. There’s an electricity bill, a cell phone bill and a letter from his credit card company telling him that his card is maxed out and he’s overdue on making his minimum repayment. Dean stuffs them all back in the box, figuring that there’s no point even getting them out until he can deal with them.

The apartment is quiet, save for the _squeak, squeak_ of Ratus running on his wheel. Dean tops up his pellet and water dishes and looks sadly at the empty fruit bowl. He opens the fridge and inspects the contents. There’s a quarter of a carton of milk, some margarine, and an almost empty carton of orange juice. Dean picks up the OJ and guns it straight out of the container, something he’d tell Ben off for doing.

The calendar above his kitchen counter tells Dean that his next child support payment is due next Monday, so if he doesn’t catch Cas in the next couple of days, he’s fucked.

Sammy would lend him the money, but Dean doesn’t want to be a burden. A man looks after his own, and even though he knows that’s bullshit, that there’s no shame in asking family for help, he still shies away from dumping his problems onto his little brother, the way his father dumped his problems on Dean. 

Just for a laugh, Dean logs onto his computer and checks his bank account on-line.

He has $3.87 to his name, no food in the fridge and too many bills he has no hope of being able to pay. Dean roots through his cupboards until he finds a half finished bottle of whiskey. He pours himself a tumbler and tosses it back before sitting with his head in his hands. Finally, he draws himself upright, digs his cell phone out of his pocket and calls Crowley.

“Did you catch Castiel?” is Crowley’s greeting.

“Not yet,” Dean says, “but I’ve made ground.”

Crowley snorts derisively.

“And speaking of Castiel,” Dean says brightly, “I had to buy some equipment today which has kind of wiped out my bank balance. Do you think I could maybe get a down payment on Cas’s capture fee?”

It takes three minutes and seven seconds for Crowley to stop laughing. Dean knows, because he times it.

“Sorry, mate,” Crowley says. “That isn’t how this business works. But if you need money, I’ve got a couple of easier FTAs I could give you. Bringing them in won’t bring you the kind of cash that Castiel will, but they’ll get you a few hundred dollars in your pocket. How does that sound?”

“Sounds good,” Dean says. “Thanks.”

“Come by tomorrow morning,” Crowley says and hangs up.

Dean finishes a fifth tumbler of whiskey and goes to bed a little the worse for wear. 

His last thought before he drifts off to sleep is, things can only go up from here, right?

He really should know better.


	3. Chapter 3

Dean’s stomach is unsatisfactorily filled with Graham Crackers and black coffee and he’s still a little bit hung over, but he breezes into the office at 10.00am on Friday morning with his very best million watt smile firmly in place. The return smile he gets from Rowena is positively evil.

“Good mornin’ darlin’,” she says. “I dinnae ken what you did to get Fergus’s knickers in such a knot, but well done. He asked me to give you these files. Specifically asked _not_ to be disturbed when you came in,” she leans forward. “Do you want to see him?”

Dean shakes his head and she pouts, disappointed.

“Right then,” she hands him one of the files. “This is Lex Cupid. He’s a repeat customer of ours. Should be easy enough.”

“What’s he charged with?” Dean asks.

Rowena grins. “Public nudity.”

“Oh,” Dean pulls a face. “ _That_ guy.”

“And this one,” Rowena hands him another file, “is Andy Gallagher. Possession of a Class A controlled substance, in this case heroin.”

Dean pulls a face. Junkies can be erratic.

“And finally,” she hands him a third file. “Frank Deveraux, who’s failed to appear on a charge of making counterfeit documents.”

Oh. Dean rubs a hand across the back of his neck. Frank Deveraux? Who made all those fake ids with Dean’s name on them for his dad? Awkward.

“Everything you need to know is in those files,” Rowena opens her desk drawer and pulls out a handful of generic King Crowley Bail Bonds business cards. “Pedersen’s does these for us. They’ve got the template. You might want to get a batch done for yourself,” she says, “with your name and cell phone number printed on them. But until then, these’ll do. Just write your details on the back.”

She nods at him, like a General sending troops into battle. “Good luck.”

Dean heads back out to the impala and sits in the driver’s seat. He flips through the three manila folders and decides to read the file on Lex Cupid first.

Apparently, Lex walked stark naked into Ristorante Dell’Amore on Valentine’s Day and started handing out ‘free hugs’ to everyone. Dean pulls a face. He looks at the picture of Lex, a chubby, baby-faced man, and shudders. 

Lex is thirty years old and currently unemployed. According to the file, he was fired from his last job as a delivery driver for Fabulous Flowers because he flashed his privates at a woman he was delivering a bouquet of red roses to. King Crowley Bail Bonds posted bail for him then too.

Dean figures there’s a good chance that Lex will be home so he drives to the address in the file and knocks on the door. Lex Cupid answers almost immediately.

He’s wearing his birthday suit.

“Hello, you!” Lex says happily.

“Uh,” Dean’s eyes dart down to Lex’s privates, swinging happily in the breeze. He brings his gaze back up and stares intently at Lex’s face.

“Hi,” he says. “I work for your bail bondsman. You missed a court appearance and I’m here to help you reschedule.”

“Really?” says Lex. “That’s awful sweet of you.”

And he launches himself at Dean and hugs him fiercely.

“Okay,” Dean pats his back hesitantly. “You wanna go put some clothes on, big guy? I’ll take you down to reschedule.”

Lex pulls away (thank fuck) and beams at Dean.

“I’ll come to reschedule,” he says. “But if God intended me to wear clothes, I’da been born wearing ‘em.”

Dean stares at Lex in horror. On the one hand, this is sounding like an easy two hundred bucks. On the other hand, he’s going to have to have this guy sitting naked in his car.

Ah, what the hell?

“Sure,” he says. “Birthday suit it is. C’mon.”

Lex climbs into the passenger seat and Dean tries not to look at him. Christ, he hopes nobody he knows sees him. When he’s about five minutes out from the police station he calls Benny and tells him that he’s bringing FTA Lex Cupid in to reschedule his court appearance.

Benny laughs. “Nice one, brother. I can’t believe he fell for that! Drive around to the rear door. I’ll have a uniform waiting to help you with the transfer of custody.”

“Just a heads up,” Dean says. “He’s coming in au naturel.”

Dean presses end with Benny’s laughter still ringing in his ears.

A small group of cops has gathered at the rear door to see the show. Lex Cupid’s forlorn look of betrayal when he’s handcuffed and taken into custody is going to take Dean a while to forget. Still, he does get to pick up a body receipt for the capture and that cheers him up. He heads straight back to the office and hands it in to Rowena who congratulates him and gives him $200.00 out of petty cash.

Dean’s first port of call is Biggerson’s, where he gets himself a burger, fries and coke. He eats in the impala, and reads through Andy Gallagher’s file.

Dean accidently drips ketchup on the paperwork, but he rubs at it until it looks more like a blood smear, which he figures is better.

Andy lives in a dark blue Dodge Tradesman with a picture of a barbarian queen riding a polar bear painted on the side. The license plate is RU-OB-1. Dean _huhs_ to himself. He’s seen that van around town, parked here and there. He hadn’t realized that someone lived in it though. Still, it shouldn’t be too hard to find.

\--

The van is ridiculously hard to find. It isn’t in any of its usual places and Dean wonders if Andy has simply left town. He calls Benny who gives him the name of Andy’s regular dealer, which isn’t much help; turning up and asking questions about a client is going to get Dean exactly squat. So he calls Ash who agrees to hack into the city’s traffic cameras for a six pack of Coors. 

While he’s waiting to hear back from Ash, Dean goes and does some grocery shopping, because he’s got no food in the house at the moment and he’s picking Ben up later tonight. If Lisa hears that he’s practically destitute, she might try to stop him having access to Ben and Dean can’t think of anything worse than not being able to see his son regularly. He picks up the six-pack for Ash and another one for himself while he’s at it.

He’s done his grocery shopping, put it away and fed Ratus a chopped up Red Delicious apple by the time Ash calls him back to tell him that he’s found traffic cam footage of Andy’s van, up near Fairview Cemetery. They both agree that the big municipal cemetery is probably a great place to hide out and Dean thanks Ash and promises to drop the six-pack around over the weekend.

On his way out to the car, Dean grabs all the bills from his mailbox and then stashes them in the glovebox.

Nowhere is very far from anywhere else in Coffeyville, so Dean is driving through the gates of the cemetery ten minutes later. He finds Andy’s van parked under a copse of trees at the very back of the cemetery.

Dean parks the Impala, gets his handcuffs and his taser out of the trunk, and goes and peers inside the van’s cabin. It’s empty, so he walks around to the rear doors, pausing to admire the barbarian queen on his way. Dean knocks on the door and waits a few moments before knocking again. He tries the handle and the door’s not locked so he opens it.

The inside of the van stinks of vomit, rotting food and sweat and Dean reels away, retching and covering his mouth and nose with his hands.

When he can bring himself to peer back in, the first thing that catches his eye is the giant Godzilla-sized bong. The second thing is the large tiger painted on the inside wall of the van. The last thing his eyes land on is the shivering hump of blankets.

“Andy?” Dean says.

There’s no response, so Dean pulls the blankets back.

Andy’s lips are blue and his breathing is shallow. There’s a spoon, a needle and a small ziplock bag containing some dregs of white powder on the mattress beside him. He mumbles something about bears.

“Andy, it’s Dean Winchester, I work for King Crowley Bail Bonds. You missed your court date and I’m here to help you reschedule.”

Andy mutters something about snakes. Dean hmphs. He’s been called worse.

“C’mon buddy, let’s get you up.”

Andy’s skin is pale and clammy. Combine that with the blue lips and shallow breathing and Dean figures he should probably take him to the hospital, rather than the precinct. He puts his taser back in the trunk and gets on with the job of rousing Andy.

Manhandling Andy into the passenger seat of the Impala takes some doing. Once he’s got him strapped in (with a Biggerson’s bag held limply in his hands in case he vomits) Dean puts pedal to the metal and heads for the hospital.

He calls Benny while he’s driving and tells him what’s happening. Benny says he’ll send a uniform over to cuff Andy to his hospital bed and give Dean his body receipt.

By the time Dean pulls into Coffeyville Regional Medical Center’s drop-off zone some four minutes later, Andy is unconscious. Dean runs inside calling for help. An orderly comes out with a stretcher and Dean helps to get Andy inside and into the triage area. He explains to the nurse, Marissa according to her name tag, that Andy is FTA and tells her that the police are on their way to put him in handcuffs. Her lips thin, but she just nods. She checks Andy’s airway as Dean explains that Andy is a known Heroin addict. He watches as she puts a mask over his face and starts giving him oxygen.

Dean hands her the bag with the dregs of white powder.

“He had this beside him, plus a needle.”

“What did you do with the syringe?” she asks.

“Left it where it was,” Dean replies. “No way I’m touching used syringes.”

Marissa nods. “I’m going to inject him with Narcan. Can you stay with him until the police arrive?”

Andy comes around fairly quickly after the Narcan and he even thanks Dean for saving his life.

“That was a bad batch, man,” he adds. “Way too pure.”

Dean knows he’s about to go from savior to bad guy, but he explains about the whole FTA thing anyway. Andy just looks befuddled. Offhand, Dean thinks he doesn’t have clue what day it is, let alone whether he should be doing anything with his day other than getting high.

Luckily for Dean, the uniform arrives just then and Dean is able to get his body receipt and head out.

He heads back to the office, gives Rowena the receipt and she writes him a check for $500.00, which he goes and cashes straight away.

He puts enough into his bank account to make sure that his next Child Support payment will go through alright and then he goes and pays his cell phone bill, because he needs his phone for work, and makes the minimum repayment on his credit card. By the time he’s done that Dean is left with just enough money in his wallet for gas and to buy Ben a burger or an ice cream if he wants one. 

Dean’s got a couple of hours until he has to go and pick Ben up, so he decides to follow up on Creedy’s ‘known associates’ Mike Kubrick, Gordon Walker and Marv Clerk; which means heading out to the Buckeye Street Gym. Dean can’t say he’s particularly looking forward to it. 

The Buckeye Street Gym is not in the good part of town. In fact, Dean’s a little nervous about leaving the Impala unattended in this neighborhood. Luckily, the gym’s next door to a body repair shop and when Dean parks out front several guys wander outside to eye off the Impala. She gets some respectful nods and Dean hopes that means she’ll still be there—and not up on bricks—when he gets back.

As Dean turns toward the gym’s entrance he thinks he sees a shadowy figure pull back from a dirty third story window in the building opposite. He wonders on it briefly, but then he’s inside the gym’s small foyer and his attention switches to the stairwell walls, painted in institutional green and covered in graffiti and decades’ worth of grimy handprints. The stairs stink of piss, sweat and cigarette smoke and the warehouse-style second floor that the stairs lead to is no better.

The gym has a bunch of weight machines and half a dozen punching bags on one side of the room and two boxing rings on the other; when Dean walks in, the twenty or so men using the equipment pause to stare at him suspiciously.

Dean knows how to handle himself in a fight; his old man saw to that. He’s spent a lot of time in low rent neighborhoods just like this one and he’s spent many an evening hustling in seedy bars. He doesn’t scare easily, but the amount of prison ink on display in the Buckeye Street Gym would make any sensible person a little uneasy.

A big Latino guy fronts up to Dean. At 6ft1, Dean doesn’t often feel small, but he comes up to this guy’s chest.

“You lost?” the guy says.

“No. I’m looking for Marv Clerk.”

The guy nods toward the boxing rings and now that he’s looking properly, Dean can see Gordon Walker sparring in the ring, with Marv Clerk and Mike Kubrick watching on.

He walks over and introduces himself to Marv and Mike, explains that he’s getting background on the murder of Jon Creedy so that he can apprehend Castiel Novak.

“Well, Dean, I don’t know what to tell you,” Marv says with a smarmy smile. “Jon went to Carmen’s place and Novak turned up and shot him. That’s as much as we know.”

“Why did Jon go to Carmen’s place?” Dean asks.

Marv shrugs. “Maybe they were dating.”

“Were they?”

Marv shrugs again.

“Dean Winchester,” a deep voice rumbles.

Dean looks up to see that Gordon Walker has come to the side of the ring and is staring down at him.

“That’s right,” Dean says, offering his hand.

Gordon grips it, not tightly like Dean was expecting, but with a gentle, lingering grasp that’s more like a caress.

“I’m Gordon.”

His eyes are hooded, his expression intense and his voice is sickly sweet. Dean’s immediate impression is that Gordon Walker is not entirely sane and he wants to bathe his hand in sanitizer immediately.

“You’re real pretty for a man,” Gordon says. “What can I do for you?”

“You can let go of my hand for a start,” Dean says sharply.

Walker lets him go, but his smile hardens. “That ain’t no way to talk to the champ.”

Dean raises an eyebrow. “You always talk about yourself in the third person?”

Walker’s expression is getting colder and more dangerous by the second. Note to self, Dean thinks, do not antagonize the crazy man.

“Dean Winchester,” Walker muses. “I know that name. Mr Morningstar talks about you. Didn’t you used to be a whore?”

Dean turns back to Marv. He takes one of the King Crowley Bail Bonds cards that Rowena gave him out of his wallet and writes his name and number on the back of it.

“If you think of anything that might be helpful, give me a call.”

Dean walks out of the gym and pauses in the stairwell to close his eyes and take a deep breath.

The sound of the door behind him opening spurs him on, but before Dean can take more than two steps toward the stairs he’s body slammed from behind and then Gordon is sitting on the back of his thighs trying to undo Dean’s belt.

“Get the fuck off me!” Dean yells.

Walker puts his hands around Dean’s neck and squeezes.

“Don’t like ‘em mouthy,” he says. “Shut the fuck up and take it like the whore you are.”

Dean’s struggling like a wild cat, but he’s starting to see black spots and he doesn’t think that anyone in the gym is going to come out and help him.

He feels Walker’s hands at his waistband again. “That’s right,” Walker croons. “Stop struggling. The champ always gets what he wants.”

Dean really hates that Walker is probably going to be right about that.

“Hey assbutt?” Dean hears.

And then Walker’s weight is thrown off him and he’s being yanked to his feet.

“Dean? You okay, Dean?”

Dean blinks and stares into two very blue, very worried, eyes.

“Yep,” he rasps.

“Great,” the eyes turn angry. “Then haul ass! Move, move!”

Dean takes Cas’s hand and let’s himself be dragged down the stairs at breakneck speed.

They burst through the gym’s front door and run down the sidewalk, until they’re level with the Impala, and then they stop.

Cas grabs Dean by the front of his jacket and slams him back against the side of the car.

“What the hell were you thinking, Dean?” Cas shouts.

“I was thinking that I was doing my job,” Dean shouts back. “I was thinking that I can take care of myself!”

“Clearly,” Cas’s voice is dripping with disdain.

“I didn’t know he was insane!”

Cas huffs and looks around furtively. “You just blew my cover and got in the way of my investigation.”

Dean frowns. “Oh. That was you on the third floor of the building opposite?”

Cas glowers. “Lucky for you I had a great view into the stairwell.”

Dean rubs at the back of his neck. “Yeah. Thanks Cas.”

Cas almost smiles. “Go home, Dean.”

Dean nods. “First though?” he takes the handcuffs out of his jacket pocket. “You’re under arrest.”

Cas actually has the audacity to laugh. “Don’t you even care that I’m innocent?”

Dean thinks about the ten grand fee coming his way if he brings Cas in. “Not really,” he says.

Cas looks disappointed. “Go home, Dean,” he reiterates as he walks away. “And stay away from Walker. He really is insane. He’s already been charged with rape three times, but his victims always seem to vanish.”

Dean dithers for a moment, but he’s feeling too grateful to Cas to make a really concerted effort to arrest him. Besides, Walker might come out to try to finish what he started and Dean would rather not give him a chance, so he gets in the car and drives home. Once there, he showers, changes, and then thinks about calling Benny to let him know what Walker tried to do. In the end, though, manly pride gets in the way of that. It’s not like he got _really_ hurt or anything, right?

\--

Dean drives over to Joplin to pick Ben up.

“Dad? Can we have McDonald’s for dinner?”

Dean shakes his head. “Sorry, kiddo, Gramma’s expecting us.”

Ben’s smile brightens. “Do you think she’ll have pineapple upside down cake?”

Dean returns his son’s smile. “She might. She knows it’s your favorite.”

Ben though, has noticed the marks on Dean’s neck, which he’s been trying to hide behind the collar of his jacket.

The kid frowns. “What happened to your neck?”

Dean licks at his lips. “Uh, I hurt it at the gym.”

Luckily, Ben seems to accept that and Dean quickly punches in _Back in Black_ to forestall conversation for a while.

The route from Lisa’s to Ellen and Bobby’s takes Dean past Castiel Novak’s place.

Or at least it can do, if you happened to memorize Cas’s address when you read his file and if you detour slightly.

Okay, a lot.

Dean doesn’t actually think Cas’s going to be hiding out at home; not when there are so many foreclosed on houses to squat in; but he can’t resist driving by anyway. His heart lurches in his chest when he sees Cas’s car in the drive way. He pulls over.

“Dad?” Ben says. “Where are we?”

“Sit tight, Buddy,” Dean says. “I’ve just gotta check something out.”

As he suspected, Cas is not actually at home. And Cas’s pimp mobile is every bit as recognizable as the Impala so given that Cas is currently a fugitive it would make zero sense for him to be driving around in it.

Dean clucks his tongue at the 1978 Lincoln Continental in _jubilee gold_ and shakes his head. Cas is inexplicably attached to this eyesore of a car. Huh. Dean tilts his head and then a wicked smile steals across his face. If he can persuade Sam to help him later, he thinks he’s got a sure fire way of making _Cas_ come to _him_.

\--

Dinner is roast lamb with mint jelly, followed by pineapple upside down cake and Ellen fusses over Ben as only a grandma can. Dean sits back and watches his family, contentment running through his veins.

“Hey Dean?” Jess comes and sits down beside him when they all move into the living room for coffee. “I hear you brought the overdose—Andy Gallagher—into the hospital this afternoon.”

“Yeah,” Dean nods.

“We had an overdose come in yesterday too, and another two came in this afternoon,” Jess says.

Sam turns to them, brow furrowed. “You think there’s a bad batch in town?”

“Andy thought so,” Dean says.

Jess nods. “We reported all the overdoses to the police, but yeah, it looks like we’ve got some really pure heroin in town,” she regards Dean contemplatively. “What happened to your neck?”

Sam’s eyes dart down to Dean’s neck and his eyes go wide.

“Dean?”

Dean swallows. “I did a little sparring with Gordon Walker. Ain’t no big deal.”

“Those look like finger marks. Shouldn’t he have been wearing gloves?”

Dean shrugs. “No gloves. Just a couple of guys showing each other their moves.”

Sam frowns and looks like he has say something about that, so Dean tells him sharply to drop it.

After coffee, Sam asks Dean to do the dishes with him. Dean knows he’s about to get thoroughly cross-examined so the moment they’re alone in the kitchen he jumps the gun and admits that yes, Walker got a little handsy with him. He downplays it a lot and promises that he’s going to stay away from Walker, and then he asks his brother if he can help him out with something.

“When I tried to arrest Cas today, he asked me to run his car for him while he’s in hiding and I said I would. Could you give me a lift to his place and then drive the Impala back to mine so I can drive his?”

Sam is holding a dish in one hand and a dish cloth in the other, staring at Dean with undisguised incredulity.

“You want _me_ —an ADA—to help you steal Cas’s car?”

Dean gives his brother a look of wide-eyed innocence. “No. Like I said--”

Sam cuts him off. “Yeah, yeah. Cas asked you to run his car. Did he give you the keys?”

Dean rubs a hand across the back of his neck. “I guess he must’ve forgot. You know, I was trying to arrest him at the time. But don’t worry; his car’s a ‘78 model. I can jimmy the lock and hotwire it in less than 60 seconds.”

Sam gets a pained expression on his face, like he’s trying to pass a watermelon or something. He holds a hand up.

“Stop talking, Dean. If I’m gonna even consider helping you, I’ve gotta have plausible deniability.”

“It’s not like I ain’t gonna give the car back,” Dean says. “I just want to… _commandeer_ it, so that Cas will come to me. And then I can arrest him. And then I can run the car for him while he’s in jail.”

Sam sighs. “Okay, fine.”

\--

Dean is possibly a little rusty, but he’s still gone in just under sixty seconds. There’s no assigned parking in Dean’s apartment block and the residents take a bit of a dog-eat-dog approach to it. Dean manages to park the Lincoln in a spot that he can see easily from his living room window and then gets out, pops the hood open and takes out the distributor cap; the low rent version of installing an engine immobilizer. 

Sam idles next to him, in the Impala. Ben’s in the back seat, because Dean wasn’t about to let his son ride in a stolen car.

Dean goes to the driver’s side and yanks open the door. “Move over, bitch,” he tells his brother.

Sam dutifully slides across, but not without a bitchface and a muttered _jerk_.

“You said a bad word,” Ben tells Dean reproachfully.

Dean’s eyes widen. Oops. “Sorry, buddy.”

“You should say sorry to Uncle Sammy,” Ben scolds.

Uncle Sammy grins wickedly.

“Uncle Sammy isn’t really upset,” Dean says. “It’s just us being brothers, you know? Trading insults.”

“You said a bad word,” Ben says stubbornly. “You should say sorry when you say a bad word. Mommy said.”

Dean sighs. Far be it from him to countermand Mommy. “Sorry, Sammy,” he says dutifully.

“I forgive you,” Sam says sanctimoniously. He’s enjoying Dean’s discomfort way too much.

They drop Sam at home and then head back to the apartment.

Ben spends some time playing with Ratus and then Dean gives him his bedtime bowl of Cheerios and reads him a chapter of Harry Potter.

“Love you, kiddo,” he says, hugging his son. “Sleep well.”

“Love you too, Daddy,” Ben says.

Dean goes and peers out the living room window. The Lincoln sits there like a nice shiny beacon. Dean’s sure Cas will come for it, and when he does, Dean will taser him. 

In the meantime, he gets himself a beer, puts on the television and catches an episode of _Crazy Ex-girlfriend_. It’s a lot better than he thought it was going to be and Dean finds himself unexpectedly invested in Rebecca’s predicament of the week.

The banging on the front door takes him by surprise and Dean startles in his seat.

It’s gotta be Cas, right? Come for his car.

Dean gets up…and realizes that the taser is still in the Impala’s trunk.

The banging sounds again, only this time it’s accompanied by someone crooning his name.

“Dee-ean, oh Dee-ean! The champ has come for you, baby. The champ is gonna take what’s his.”

Holy fuck. It’s Gordon Walker.

The door handle wiggles. “Let me in Deano. Know you want it. Know you’re a slut for dick.”

“Daddy?”

Ben is standing in the living room doorway, eyes wide and frightened. Dean puts a finger to his lips in a silent _shush_ gesture.

He crosses to Ben and picks him up. Walker’s taunts echo behind him as Dean takes Ben back to his room and settles him down; reassuring him that it’s just a silly drunk man and that daddy will call the police.

“He won’t hurt us, will he?” Ben asks fearfully.

Dean shakes his head. “No, kiddo. Daddy’s got a taser.”

He doesn’t mention that it’s in the Impala’s trunk.

Walker is making some kind of loud, obscene moaning noise now.

“You stay here,” Dean tells his son. “I’m gonna go and call the police, okay?”

By the time Dean gets back out to the living room, Walker has gone silent. Dean opens the peephole and looks out, but he can’t see anyone. He crosses to the living room window and peers out just in time to see a red Porsche Boxster roar away. A Porsche is a little too upmarket for any of the residents of this apartment block and Dean wonders if it belongs to Gordon Walker.

He goes back to his front door and peers out the peephole again, but he still can’t see anyone. He gets his cell phone out and dials 911. He holds his finger just above the send button and slowly opens his front door. The hallway is empty. And there’s a creamy white substance dripping down the outside of his door. Dean gags and reels back. He shuts the door and then stands staring at it in horror. Only two days as a bounty hunter and he’s already had a world-class psycho jerking off on his front door.

Dean debates calling the precinct, but in the end, once again, manly pride prevents him from reporting what happened. Instead, he cleans his front door with boiling water and a lot of disinfectant and then he takes another shower.

When Dean goes to bed that night he tries to focus on the ten grand fee he’s going to get for bringing Cas in. For the first time, he wonders whether the money is going to be worth it.


	4. Chapter 4

Dean wakes up to find Ben standing beside his bed staring at him.

“Ben?” he turns to his bedside clock and sees that it’s a little past seven in the morning. “You ready for breakfast, huh?”

Ben nods. “I guess. What happened to the Ben channel?”

Dean takes a surreptitious deep breath and meets his son’s eyes. “I can’t afford Netflix at the moment,” he says. “But I bet we can find some cartoons somewhere.”

They can’t. All there is on free-to-air that’s suitable for kids is a parade of low budget shows about animals and travelogues hosted by overly-enthusiastic, plastic looking teenagers. Dean hits the off button and sighs.

“Sorry, kiddo, guess things’ve changed since I last watched Saturday morning cartoons. You wanna come and help me make breakfast? How does pancakes sound?”

Ben seems somewhat mollified by the promise of pancakes. Dean looks in his cupboard. He has flour, so that’s a good start. He has milk. He has maple syrup.

He doesn’t have any eggs. 

Shit.

Before he can even open his mouth to tell Ben they’re going to have to make a quick run to the store, there’s a knock on the front door.

“It’s me, Dean,” Missouri Moseley says as Dean approaches the door.

He opens the door and finds her holding a carton of eggs and a packet of Canadian bacon. She hands them to Dean, who frowns.

“How did you--”

“ _Psychic_ ,” she says, bustling her way inside. “How many times do I have to tell you? Now are you going to invite me to breakfast or what?”

“You tell me?” Dean snarks.

Missouri just rolls her eyes at him.

“Well hello, Ben,” she says. “How are you doin’ today?”

“You remember Miss Moseley, right?” Dean says.

Ben nods shyly.

Pretty soon, Dean’s kitchen is a whirlwind of activity. Missouri brews coffee and fries up bacon, while Dean and Ben mix up a batch of pancake batter and then Dean cooks them, turning each one by tossing it high in the air, much to Ben’s delight.

“I heard some trouble in the hall last night,” Missouri says quietly when Ben’s headed off to clean his teeth and get dressed.

“Gordon Walker,” Dean says.

Missouri’s eyes go glassy for a minute. “You need to stay away from him. That boy is crazy. He’ll hurt you if he can.”

Dean nods. “I’m gonna do my best, ma’am.”

When Missouri’s gone Dean goes and gets himself ready and then they head over to Ellen and Bobby’s. Ben finally gets his Saturday morning cartoons and Dean goes and helps Rufus strip a 1982 Chrysler Imperial for parts.

“So Rufus,” he says, as he takes off a door panel, “the other day you seemed to know a lot about Gordon Walker.”

Rufus eyes him suspiciously. “Why are you interested in Walker?”

Dean explains that he’d been down at the Buckeye Street Gym yesterday, interviewing the known associates of Jon Creedy and that Walker had seemed…off. He skips the part about the boxer attacking him.

Rufus takes his time answering. “His family and mine don’t exactly run in the same circles,” he says, “so I only know what I hear and that’s just gossip. I hear he’s a good boxer who could make it big. Like Mike Tyson big.”

Dean wonders how deep the similarities with Mike Tyson run. Tyson, after all, was convicted of rape, and he was infamous for trying to bite off Evander Holyfield’s ear during a boxing match too.

“Walker’s got an intimidating boxing style, just like Tyson,” Rufus continues, “and then there’s, you know, the rumors about rape. People say that Marv Clerk thought he was onto a real winner when he signed Walker, but now he’s regretting it, because of all Walker’s controversial behavior outside the ring.”

“So you think Marv and his team are cleaning up Walker’s messes for him?”

Rufus runs a hand over his chin. “Could be.”

Dean wonders if Carmen Porter was one of Walker’s messes. He wonders if she’s still missing.

\--

For lunch, Dean and Ben are treated to a bowl of Ellen’s homemade mac’n’cheese, followed by a big slice of chocolate cream pie. Afterwards, Dean asks Ellen if Ben can stay with her for a couple of hours because he’s got some work to do.

Ellen’s hands go to her hips and she levels him with a stare that, well, Dean would honestly rather face down Gordon Walker again than deal with Ellen’s disapproval.

“You hardly get to see him,” she hisses quietly, “and you ain’t gonna spend every moment with him?”

“I’ve got an FTA to apprehend,” Dean says. “And I’m sorry, but I’ve got bills to pay—such as child support—and I need the money.”

Ellen softens a little. “The Gas’n’Sip are still hiring,” she says. “And Doris down at bingo told me yesterday that there’s a ‘help wanted’ sign in the window of Weiner Hut too.”

Dean rolls his eyes. “I earned $700.00 yesterday. Can the Gas’n’Sip or Weiner Hut pay me $700.00 for a day’s work?”

Ellen sighs. “At least you’d be safe.”

Dean steps forward and wraps his arms around her. “I promise I’ll be careful, Mom.”

Ellen squeezes him hard. “You better be. Off you go. I’ll watch Ben for you. Ain’t like it’s a hardship to spend time with my grandson.”

Ben may not be hers by blood, but Ellen and Bobby have always known that family doesn’t end with blood.

\--

Dean drives to Carmen Porter’s apartment block, which isn’t actually all that far from his and has the same dog-eat-dog approach to parking spots. He gets a good one, right up close to the foyer doors, and cheerfully ignores the ‘resident parking only’ sign.

Dean double checks Carmen’s apartment number and then heads on up to apartment 203. Almost as soon as his boots sound in the corridor the security chain is sliding off and the door is opening in the apartment opposite Carmen’s. In the gap allowed by the security chain, Dean can see fluffy pink slippers, a white and pink house coat, and steel-grey hair in hair rollers. He figures the nosy old biddy who lives opposite is probably a pretty good place to start his investigation.

Dean gets out one of his cards and stops in front of the old biddy’s door.

“Good afternoon, ma’am,” he says. “I’m Dean Winchester, a fugitive recovery agent for King Crowley Bail Bonds. I’m in pursuit of a fugitive and as part of my investigation I was wondering if you could tell me about the night Jon Creedy got shot in Carmen’s apartment.”

The old biddy takes the card and peers at it. “Don’t go tryin’ a sound all fancy,” she says, with the raspy croak of a woman who’s been smoking a pack a day for sixty years. “You’re a bounty hunter.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Dean agrees. He lowers his tone conspiratorially. “Did you see what happened that night?”

The old woman nods. She hands Dean’s card back to him and then sticks her hand out. “The name’s Betty Rogers,” she says. “But you can keep callin’ me ma’am.”

“Yes ma’am,” Dean says.

He gives her the smile that Lisa used to call his panty-melting smile and Betty chuckles.

“Oh if only I was a few years younger.”

Dean’s smile becomes a little fixed.

“So what did you see?” he asks.

“Carmen had her TV on real loud that night. I ain’t never heard her play it so loud. I was just thinkin’ maybe I should turn my hearing aid down when I heard someone bang on her front door. I went to have a look and it was a man. Turns out he was a cop. Castiel Novak. I guess he had to bang so hard ‘cause no one could hear him over the TV. Then there was a gunshot. That’s when I called the police. When I got back to my door there was a big commotion goin’ on in the hall.”

Dean nods. “And?”

“And Marty Cusack was there, and some others from the building. We take care of our own here. We ain’t like some of those people who pretend not to hear things. That’s why we got no drugs here. Anyway, Marty was standing over the cop when I looked out. I guess he didn’t know the man was a cop, he just saw someone shot dead in Carmen’s doorway and a man with a gun, so Marty took matters into his own hands.”

“So you saw a dead man on the ground and the cop was, what? Knocked out?”

Betty nods.

“Then what happened?”

“It was real confusing. There was a lot of people in the hall.”

“Was Carmen there?”

“I didn’t see her. But there was just so many people. Everybody wanted to know what happened, you know? People was trying to help the dead man, but it was no use. He was dead.”

“Supposedly, when Cas Novak arrived, there were _two_ men inside Carmen’s apartment. Did you see the second man?”

Betty nods. “Yeah. There was a man I never saw before. Skinny, dark hair, pale skin, about thirty, funny face. Like he’d been hit with a frying pan. Real flat nose. That’s why I noticed him.”

“What happened to him?”

Betty shrugs. “Don’t know. I guess he just left. Like Carmen.”

Dean decides that a visit to Marty Cusack might be in order and Betty gives him Marty’s apartment number. She says he ought to be home, on account of his being between jobs at the moment.

As Dean heads to Marty’s apartment he wonders what sort of a guy would be willing and able to knock out Cas Novak. Cas is only 5ft10, but he’s surprisingly strong and he’s no slouch when it comes to unarmed combat either. 

The question is answered when Marty Cusack answers his front door. Marty is taller than Sam and looks like he weighs about 240 pounds. He’s got a tattoo of a rattle snake wrapped around his right arm and a dagger tattoo on his left forearm. His long dark hair is pulled back in a ponytail and he has a can of Coors in one hand and a remote control in the other.

Dean gives him the same bounty hunter spiel he’d given Betty and asks Marty what he can remember about the night of the murder.

Marty takes a long slurp of his beer. “Well,” he says. “I was coming up the stairs when I heard the gunshot.”

“Betty Rogers, on the second floor, says you subdued the gunman.”

“Yeah. I didn’t know he was a cop. All I knew was he’d shot someone, and he was still armed. There was a lot of people coming into the hall to see what was goin’ on and I figured it wasn’t a good situation, so I hit him with a six-pack. Knocked him out cold.”

A six-pack? Dean smirks. The police report had said Cas got hit with a blunt instrument. It hadn’t said anything about a six-pack.

“That was very brave of you.”

Marty grins. “Hell, bravery didn’t have anything to do with it. I was shitfaced.”

Dean almost laughs, before schooling his face into a serious expression.

“Do you know what happened to Carmen?”

“Nope. Guess she disappeared in the scuffle.”

“And you haven’t seen her since?”

“Nope.”

“How about the missing male witness? Betty said there was a man with a flattened nose …”

“I remember seeing him, but that’s about it.”

“Would you recognize him if you saw him again?”

“Probably.”

“Do you think there’s anyone else in the building who might know more about the missing man?”

“Eichmann was the only other person who got a good look at the guy.”

“Is Eichmann a tenant here?”

“Eichmann _was_ a tenant here. He got hit by a car last week. Right in front of the building. Hit and run.”

Dean doesn’t like the sound of that. At all. He thanks Marty for his time and walks slowly back to his car, deep in thought. He’s really starting to wonder if Carmen left the building of her own volition. Or if she was even there in the first place. He pauses by the Impala and takes a look around. Opposite the apartment building there’s a row of four tumble-down clapboard sided terrace houses, the type with a porch out the front and a rocker on the porch. Dean goes across and knocks on doors until one of them is opened by a grizzled old man wielding a baseball bat.

“Batting practice?” Dean asks with a raised eyebrow.

The man lowers the bat with a grunt. “Can’t be too careful these days.”

Dean introduces himself, goes through his bounty hunter spiel again and then asks the man if he remembers the night of the murder in the apartment building opposite.

The old man snorts, indignantly. “Yeah, I remember it; my brain don’t got that old timer’s disease yet.”

Dean asks him if he saw a man with a flat nose leaving the building, maybe with a dark haired woman in tow.

“I got better things to do than to look out my damn windows. And anyway, the murder happened at night. It was dark. How the hell am I supposed to see anything?”

Dean points out the streetlights. “It looks like this area’d be pretty well lit.”

The old man scowls. “The lights were out that night. I told this to the cops that come around. The damn lights are always out. Kids shoot them out. I know they were out because someone left the motor running on one of them refrigerator trucks … like from a food store. Damn thing was parked right out front of my house, so noisy I could barely hear my television, so I looked out the window and it was pitch black out there. No lights. I tell you the neighborhood’s going to hell. People got no consideration. They park trucks and delivery cars out front all the time while they do personal visits. Shouldn’t be allowed.”

Dean nods and makes a vaguely encouraging noise.

“The delivery driver moved the truck into the building’s car park later, but I could still hear its motor running. And then, even later, there was cop cars and sirens and then another truck comes along, a police wagon about the same size as the refrigerator truck, and _they_ left their motor running too. These guys must have money to burn, the price gas is these days. I tell you boy, the whole country’s going to Hell. When I was a youngster…”

The old man rattles on and Dean makes a mental note to buy himself a gun, so that if he ever gets this old and crotchety he can shoot himself.

Dean finally gets a word in edgeways. “So you didn’t really see anything suspicious?”

“Was too damn dark, I’m telling you. King Kong could have been climbing up the wall of that apartment building and nobody would’ve seen.”

Dean makes his way back to his car, where he finds a good looking older man with pale blue eyes and a grey beard leaning casually against the hood.

“Can I help you?” Dean asks.

The man steps forward and extends a hand. “Tim Cain,” he says.

“Oh. Right. You’re one of Crowley’s guys. You just had your appendix out?”

“I’m recovered now,” Cain says. “So it’s time for you to hand over the Castiel Novak file to a more experienced agent.”

Dean raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, I don’t think so. Crowley gave Novak to me. He gave me a week. And then he’s giving it to Henricksen, not you. But nice try.”

Cain glowers. “I’ll be seeing you round, Dean,” he says as he saunters away.

Dean shakes his head and makes his way back to Ellen and Bobby’s. He spends the rest of the afternoon playing board games with his son and then Ellen makes meatloaf for dinner, a meal which is followed by the last of the chocolate cream pie. Ellen gives Dean a parcel of left overs to take home and Dean is grateful.

Back home, Ben feeds Ratus and plays with him for a while and then Dean gives him a bath and puts him to bed.

He watches an old episode of The Cleveland Show and then goes to take a shower.

Dean’s just finished rinsing the shampoo from his hair when a blur of color on the other side of his opaque shower curtain catches his attention.

His stomach lurches as he remembers Walker jerking off on his front door last night.

Fuck. His taser’s still in the trunk of the Impala. Not that he could exactly take it in the shower with him. His cell phone is on the window sill next to the shower, but he’ll probably be dead before he even finishes dialling 911.

Suddenly the shower curtain is ripped back with so much force that it tears away from the rings holding it in place.

Dean can’t help yelling. For good measure he throws his shampoo bottle at the intruder.

“God dammit!” Cas shouts, rubbing at his forehead where Dean has nailed him front and center.

“What the Hell are you doing!” Dean yells. “How did you get in here?”

“Fire escape. Living room window.” Cas says shortly. “I’m here for my car.”

“And what about my shower curtain?” Dean rants, because he’s naked and his heart’s still thumping at a million beats per second and anger is better than fear. “Shower curtains don’t just grow on trees, you know. You owe me a new one.”

“Where’s my distributor cap?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dean reaches for the towel hanging on the rail beside the shower, but Cas beats him to it, snatching it out of reach.

“Give me the towel, Cas.”

“Nope,” Cas lets his eyes run lasciviously over Dean’s body. “It’s been way too long since I last got to see you in all your naked glory.”

Dean glares. “Fuck you, Cas.”

Cas smirks. “If you like. I’m versatile. Although I seem to recall that you prefer it the other way around.”

Dean decides not to dignify the comment with a response.

Cas sighs. “Alright, back to business. Where’s my distributor cap?”

Dean looks away.

Cas sighs. “Okay, be like that.”

Lightning fast, Cas pulls a pair of handcuffs out of his back pocket and snaps one of the cuffs around Dean’s wrist.

“Sonofabitch!” Dean tries to twist away, but all he does is end up in Cas’s arms with his dick pressed against Cas’s jean-clad thigh. To his chagrin, Dean can feel himself starting to get hard.

Cas smirks. “Oh baby,” he says. “You naked. Me with a pair of handcuffs,” he squeezes Dean’s ass check and Dean barely bites back a moan at how good it feels. “We could really have some fun,” Cas snaps the other handcuff onto the shower rail. “If only you’d tell me where my goddamn distributor cap is!”

“Go to Hell, Cas,” Dean snarls.

Cas responds by slapping Dean’s ass so hard that his eyes water.

“My son’s asleep in his bedroom,” Dean says. “If you wake him up and scare him I will hunt you down and rip your lungs out.”

Cas looks a little guilty at the news that Ben’s in the house. “Fine,” he says. “I’ll come back in a few days, when he’s back with Lisa.”

Cas turns around and heads for the door.

“Uh, Cas?” Dean says. “The cuffs?”

Cas leaves the key on the vanity. Way out of Dean’s reach. He tries to reach it futilely for half an hour and then gives up and calls his brother.

Sam has a key to Dean’s house and he’s highly amused by the sight of naked Dean cuffed to his shower rail. Dean has to threaten to tell Jess some embarrassing stories from Sam’s childhood to dissuade him from taking pictures.

When Dean finally gets unlocked, dressed and out into the living room, the place is a little messier than it was when he went for his shower. He guesses that Cas spent some time turning the place over, looking for the distributor cap before he came into the bathroom.

“So where _did_ you hide the distributor cap, anyway?” Sam asks.

Dean grins. “Under Ratus’s hay. Cas hates rats.”

\--

Taking Ellen’s words of the previous day to heart, Dean spends Sunday just hanging out with Ben. They cook breakfast together again, they spend some time throwing a ball around at the park, and they have Sunday lunch at Ellen and Bobby’s. Finally, it’s time for Dean to take Ben home again, which he does with a heavy heart.

\--

Monday morning, despite his misgivings, Dean decides to try apprehending Frank Deveraux. He knows from Bobby that Frank is suspicious and paranoid and he’s not sure he likes his chances of bringing the guy in. Crowley has had at least three other bounty hunters try to bring him in and so far, no one has had any luck.

One advantage that Dean has is that Bobby actually knows where Frank lives and he’s given Dean the address, which turns out to be an RV kept on a vacant lot at the far end of an unmade road.

Dean knocks on the RV’s door, but there’s no answer.

“Frank?” he calls. “Frank? You in there?”

There’s still no answer. He knocks again. “It’s Dean Winchester. I know Bobby Singer. Can I come in?”

When he still doesn’t get an answer, Dean tries the door handle. The RV is unlocked and, well, Frank could be unconscious in there or something. It’s Dean’s civic duty to make sure he’s alright.

Dean enters the RV and is blinded by a very bright light shone directly into his face.

“Well, well, well,” says a voice. “Spider caught a fly.”

“Frank?” he says, shielding his eyes with his and trying to peer past the high intensity flashlight. “Is that you?”

“Who wants to know?”

“Dean Winchester.”

“Uh huh. And who sent you? The NSA? The feebs? Big Pharma?”

“Uh…you missed your court date. I’m here to help you reschedule.”

Dean hears the unmistakable sound of a rifle being cocked.

“I'm gonna give you to the count of 10, to get your ugly, yella, no-good keister off my property,” Frank says, voice low and mean, “before I pump your guts full of lead!”

Dean’s ears perk up. “Home alone? Really Frank?”

“One,” Frank says. “Two…”

Dean knows how that line ends, so he flees with Frank’s cackling laughter ringing in his ears.

He really needs to buy a gun, just as soon as he has some spare cash.

On the way home, Dean stops and fills up at the Gas’n’Sip. They still have their ‘help wanted’ sign up in the window and for a moment Dean considers it. And then he sees the front page of the local newspaper, on the newsstand inside and goes completely cold.

_Local Man Killed in Drive-by Shooting,_ reads the headline, below which, is a photograph of Marty Cusack.

Jesus Christ on a pogo stick. He just talked to the guy Saturday afternoon.

Dean’s breath catches in his throat as he reads the article. Marty Cusack had been gunned down Saturday night in front of his apartment building. Fuck. Dean swallows. The article goes on to say that Cusack was a hero in the Gulf War, who was awarded the Purple Heart, and how he was a colorful, well-liked neighborhood figure. As of press time, the police had no suspect and no motive.

Dean on the other hand, has a theory about motive. Of the three people to have seen the flat-nosed third man in Carmen’s apartment, two are now dead. Dean doesn’t believe in co-incidences. He is starting to believe that Cas is innocent of murder though. He may have shot Jon Creedy, but it’s starting to seem likely that he had grounds.

\--

Dean’s cell phone rings just as he pulls into a parking space at his apartment building. Caller ID shows that it’s Lisa, so he answers it.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Lisa screeches.

“Excuse me?”

“Ben says you stole a car with him!”

“I didn’t steal a car. I was just helping out a friend who lost his keys. Sam was with us too, you know Sammy’s not gonna help me steal a car.”

Lisa harrumphs. “He also says you guys had breakfast with some strange woman on Saturday morning and something about you not having any eggs.”

She sounds jealous and Dean can’t help laughing. “Missouri, yeah. She is a little strange. She’s my fifty-something neighbor and I forgot to get eggs so I had to borrow some off her to make Ben pancakes for breakfast. It only seemed fair to invite her to eat with us.”

Lisa harrumphs again. “And what about the ‘scary guy’ he says banged on your door, Friday night?”

“Some drunk guy. This ain’t the best neighborhood. I wish I could afford better, Lise, but I can’t right now.”

“Is it safe for Ben?”

“It has been so far,” Dean says.

Dean hopes he’s not putting Ben in danger with his bounty hunter job. Maybe he should stay at Ellen and Bobby’s on the weekends when he has Ben.

“So you’re not seeing anyone right now?” Lisa asks.

“Nope.”

There’s a long pause and then Lisa says. “I am. His name’s Matt. He’s a doctor.”

“Good for you,” Dean says.

“You don’t mind?”

“If you and Ben are happy, I’m happy. If he hurts either of you, they’ll never find the body.”

Lisa laughs. “Matt’s a decent guy. He hasn’t met Ben yet, but I think we’re getting to that stage.”

“Good luck,” Dean says. “I gotta go.”

“Yeah. Take care, Dean.”

Lisa hangs up and Dean, _finally_ , remembers to take the taser out of the Impala’s trunk, before making his way up to his apartment. The minute he opens the front door he realizes that there’s someone inside.

\--

There are noises coming from the kitchen so Dean creeps silently toward it, taser at the ready. It’s got to be Walker, right? Or maybe the flat-faced man. There are bangs and clatters coming from the kitchen and…is that _sizzling_? Dean takes a subtle sniff and frowns. Is that…frying onion?

He rounds the corner into the kitchen brandishing the taser and is confronted by the sight of Castiel Novak cooking at his stove.

“Fuck me, dead!” Cas clutches at his chest. “You scared the Hell outta me.”

Dean’s eyebrows have disappeared into his hairline. “ _I_ scared _you_? I thought you were an intruder, man,” he frowns. “I mean, technically, I guess you are. Also? What are you doing?”

Cas waves the spatula he’s holding. “I thought that would’ve been obvious.”

Dean rolls his eyes. “ _Why_ are you cooking in my kitchen?”

“When I was searching your apartment for my distributor cap the other day I noticed that your kitchen cupboards made Mother Hubbard’s look full. And I bet they were only as stocked as they were because you had Ben coming. You haven’t been looking after yourself properly, Dean.”

Dean has absolutely no idea how to respond, so he just stands and gapes.

“I’m making a quick and dirty goulash,” Cas adds. “Not as good as my mama’s, but not bad. You wanna set the table?”

Dean’s stomach rumbles on cue. He looks at the taser in his hand and considers trying to arrest Cas. Maybe after they’ve eaten; you’ve gotta keep your priorities straight after all and that goulash sure does smell good.

Dean puts the taser down on the counter and gets out some plates and cutlery. Cas, meanwhile pours them each a glass of red wine, from a bottle he obviously brought with him.

They sit down to eat and Dean has to admit that Cas is a damn fine cook.

“Dean I have a proposition for you,” Cas says when they’re mopping up the last of the goulash on their plates with fresh, crusty bread.

“I’m listening.”

“Firstly, I swear that I only killed Creedy in self-defense. Do you believe me?”

Dean sighs. “Yeah. I do.”

“Okay,” Cas nods. “Bottom line, I need you, Dean.”

Dean raises an eyebrow and Cas grins.

“Not like that. Although I wouldn’t say no,” Cas’s eyes rake over him with obvious appreciation. “Basically, I’m out there trying to prove my innocence, but every man and his dog is looking for me, which makes it really hard to move around in a small town like this one. What I’m proposing is that we work together. You help me find the missing witness and in exchange I’ll let you take me in and collect the bounty.”

Dean thinks about it. He figures he’s fairly unlikely to collect the bounty on Cas without the man’s cooperation and in all honesty, he could do with someone to talk this case through with.

“Okay,” he says. “Tell me everything you know.”

Castiel starts with the story that he gave to the police, and then adds that Carmen Porter was a CI and he’d gone to her place because she’d phoned him one night when he was at home watching television, to tell him that she’d been raped and beaten.

“She told me she needed money, and a safe place to stay, and in return she’s going to give me something big.”

“Gordon Walker,” Dean says.

Cas nods. “That would be my guess. When I got to Carmen’s apartment Jon Creedy answered the door, and Carmen was nowhere in sight. Another guy, better known as the missing witness, comes out of the bedroom, recognizes me from who-knows-where, and panics. `This guy’s a cop,’ he yells to Creedy. ‘I can’t believe you opened the door to a goddamn cop.’ So then Creedy draws a gun on me and squeezes the trigger. I return fire and shoot him almost point-blank. Next thing I know, I’m staring at the ceiling. The second guy is gone. Carmen’s gone. Creedy’s gun is gone.”

“How could he have missed you at such close range? And if he missed you, where’d the bullet go?”

“The only explanation I can come up with is that the gun misfired.”

“And now you want to find Carmen so Carmen can back up your story.”

Cas shakes his head. “I don’t think Carmen’s going to be backing up anyone’s story. My guess is she was beaten up by Walker, and Creedy and his pal were sent to finish the job. I’ve been hearing things since I started investigating, and one thing I’ve learned is that Walker liked to ‘punish’ his ‘lovers’. Sometimes, men and women last seen in his company are known to disappear. I think he gets carried away and kills them, or maybe he hurts them so bad he has to send someone to finish the job to keep things quiet. Then the body vanishes. No body. No crime. I think Carmen was dead in the bedroom when I arrived. That’s why Creedy freaked.”

“There’s only one door,” Dean says, “and no one saw her leave … dead or alive.”

“There’s a window in the bedroom that overlooks the parking lot.”

Dean’s eyes widen. “You think the missing guy dumped the body out the window and then jumped? It’s a long way down.”

Cas shrugs. “Maybe he threw the body down that way and then slipped out the front door during all the commotion. One thing I do know is that of the three other people who saw him at the apartment, one is already dead.”

“Two,” Dean says, and fills Cas in on the drive-by-shooting that did for Marty Cusack.

“Shit,” Cas says, emphatically.

Dean pours himself another glass of wine. “The only two links we have left to frypan-face are Walker himself and Betty Rogers, the last remaining witness.”

“We could stake out her apartment? Wait until Frypan-face makes a move on her?”

Dean pulls a face. “She’s an old lady, Cas. We can’t use an old lady as bait. I’m gonna call Benny and ask him to put a protective detail on her.”

Cas nods. “So we use you as bait then.”

Dean stares at him. “Me?”

“Tomorrow I’ll wire up your apartment for video and audio surveillance. Put a wire on you. We’ll dangle you in front of Walker a bit more and when he comes for you, you need to get him to brag about Carmen and how he got his lackey’s to get rid of the body. Then I’ll burst in and subdue him and you can take us both in, collect your fee and prove my innocence in one fell swoop.”

“Jesus, Cas,” Dean swallows.

“Don’t worry, Dean,” Cas says, intense eyes boring into Dean’s. “I’ll protect you.”

Dean shakes his head, not negating Cas’s assertion, just trying to clear his head.

“I like you, Dean,” Cas says softly. “I’d never let anything bad happen to you.”

Dean doesn’t know what to say to that. The truth is, Cas has always been the yardstick by which he measured his lovers and very few people have ever measured up. But to start something with Cas _now_ , would be incredibly stupid, no matter how much his dick likes the idea. So Dean gets up and starts clearing away dishes.

A beat later, Cas starts to help. As they do the dishes together, moving comfortably around each other like an old married couple, Dean begins to wonder if there’s an angle they’re missing. Why did Carmen think she’d get a new start just for turning in a rapist? The way the legal system works when it comes to rape, she’d be lucky just to get Walker convicted.

“Carmen was your informant,” Dean says. “What sort of stuff did she inform about?”

“She sold whatever scraps came her way. She worked at The Red Bar, so she overheard a lot of stuff. Mostly low-level drug stuff. Names of people who worked for Nick Morningstar. Names of people who were dealing. I don’t know what she had for me when she called. I never got it, obviously.”

Dean’s heart skips a beat at the mention of the notorious gang leader. “You think she had something to tell you about Nick Morningstar?”

Cas shakes his head. “I think it’s more likely she had something to tell me about Walker.”

He’s pressed up very close behind Dean and Dean turns so that he’s facing Cas. Cas brings his hands down and brackets Dean in against the kitchen counter.

“God, Dean,” he says. “I would love the chance to right some past wrongs.”

His face gets lower. He’s going to kiss Dean, Dean knows it, and he’s still trying to decide whether or not he’s going to allow it when someone knocks on his front door.

“Shit!” Cas jerks away. “No one can know I’m here!”

“Go hide in my bedroom,” Dean says.

The knock sounds again, louder and longer this time. Dean picks up the taser from the kitchen counter and makes his way slowly to the door.


	5. Chapter 5

Dean peers through the peephole and is relieved to see that it’s Tim Cain and not Gordon Walker at the door.

“What do you want, Cain?” he says through the closed door.

“I just wanted to apologize for earlier,” Cain says. “Can I come in?”

Dean wants to say no, but he feels as if that might be suspicious, so he lets Cain into his apartment.

“I’m listening,” he says, taser at the ready.

Cain eyes the taser nervously. “Okay, look,” he says. “I had no right to demand you give me the file on Novak and I’m sorry. No hard feelings, okay?”

“Sure.”

Cain waits a moment and then steps around Dean and sits down on his sofa. “I see Novak’s car is here.”

“Bait,” Dean says. “I took out the distributor cap. I’m hoping he’ll come to get it back and then I can taser him.”

“Good plan.”

“Are we done?”

Cain coughs. “Could I trouble you for a glass of water before I go?”

Yeah, that’s not suspicious at all. Still, Dean can’t think of a reason to say no, so he hurries into the kitchen and he’s barely filled the glass when he hears his front door slam shut. Frowning he goes back into the living room.

Ratus’s cage door is open.

“Sonofabitch!”

Cas comes out of the bedroom.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Cain stole your distributor cap. I hid it in Ratus’s cage. I guess Ratus must’ve kicked it clear of the hay and Cain saw it.”

Dean crosses to the living room window. He watches as Cain pops the hood of Cas’s car and puts the distributor cap back in. He then climbs into the driver’s seat.

“So Cain’s got my car now,” Cas says with a shrug. “What’s the big deal?”

The big deal is that Dean got played at his own game. The big deal is that Cain stole his idea on how to bait Cas. The big deal is…

A bright white flash blinds Dean and the entire building rocks. When Dean’s eyes stop watering enough to see again, Castiel’s car is in charred pieces down in the car park.

“Holy shit,” Castiel’s voice is hollow with shock. “My car just blew up.”

\--

Dean calls the precinct and pretty soon the whole area is a noisy mess of police cars and EMTs. It’s Benny who eventually comes up to talk to Dean. Castiel hides in the bedroom again.

Dean tells Benny about the missing witness and Walker and about Cain stealing the distributor cap.

“So you think that bomb was meant for either you or Novak?” Benny says.

Dean nods. “Cain…is he…?”

“Yeah,” Benny says, eyes sad. “Not much left of him, to be honest.”

“Fuck,” Dean can’t keep the shake out of his voice.

“You want us to leave a protective detail here?”

Dean shakes his head and asks Benny to arrange one for Betty Rogers instead, which he says he’ll do.

“You sure you’ll be okay?”

Dean nods. “They probably think they got me. I’ll be okay tonight. Maybe I’ll go and stay at Ellen and Bobby’s tomorrow.”

Dean walks slowly into his bedroom and Cas comes out of the closet where he’d been hiding. Dean can’t even be bothered to make a joke about it.

Cas wraps his arms around Dean and holds him tightly. “We’ll get them,” he says fiercely. His hands wander down to Dean’s ass, kneading and squeezing.

“Let me make you feel better,” he says.

“You brought pie?” Dean quips.

Cas laughs. “No. But if you’ll let me, I’ll bring you orgasms.”

Cas’s cock sucking skills have definitely improved with time. He brings Dean to the edge over and over again, alternating between deep throating him and subjecting the head of his dick to delicate kitten licks and gentle sucks. Eventually, when Dean’s alternating between threats and begging, Cas slides a spit-wet finger up inside of Dean and massages his p-spot while sucking him down hard. He pulls off just before Dean comes, arching off the bed with a cry.

While Dean’s still coming down from the high, Cas gets his own dick out and jerks off, his own come soon joining Dean’s, on Dean’s stomach.

“Gross, Cas,” Dean bitches.

Cas smirks, like the cat that got the canary, but he does go and get a wash cloth from the bathroom and clean Dean up.

The lie next to each other in Dean’s bed and Dean tries to convince himself that what he really should be doing is cuffing Cas to the headboard the minute he falls asleep, and not for sexy fun-times either. Cas is the FTA he’s supposed to be bringing in, and here he is fraternizing with the enemy. Dean’s still trying to convince himself to go and get his handcuffs when he falls asleep.

\--

When he wakes up Cas is in the kitchen, making a pot of coffee, eating a bowl of Cheerios and bitching about the lack of bacon.

“So plans?” Dean says when he’s settled against the counter with a cup of coffee in hand.

“I’m gonna get your apartment wired for sound and motion. You go dangle yourself in front of Walker.”

Dean pulls a face.

“Oh and Dean, I almost forgot,” Cas hustles into the bedroom and comes out with a 9mm Beretta “Here,” he says. “You know how to shoot, right?”

Dean nods. “Thanks, Cas.”

Cas smiles, his eyes crinkling. “You’re welcome. Now give me your phone.”

Dean complies and watches while Cas keys a number into the contacts.

“This is the number of the burner phone I’ll be using today. If you need me, call,” he hands the phone back. “And get some groceries while you’re out, will you?”

“I would, but I’m broke,” Dean snarks.

Cas gets his wallet out and hands Dean two fifty dollar bills.

It’s all very domestic and Dean isn’t sure whether he likes the feeling or not, so he picks up his cell phone and his keys and heads out.

His first stop is the Buckeye Street Gym, but Walker isn’t there. Still, Dean lets it be known that he’s looking for the boxer and then he heads out to The Red Bar.

It’s been nearly ten years since Dean last set foot in The Red, but it hasn’t changed much; same battered mismatched furniture; same sticky floors; same seedy atmosphere. Even some of the patrons are the same; just ten years further down the road to nowhere.

Dean orders a beer, just what’s on tap, and asks the barmaid—Trish according to her name tag—if she’s seen Carmen lately.

“Why you askin’ about Carmen?” Trish says, her voice hard and unyielding.

“I’m worried about her. I heard she had some trouble with Gordon Walker.”

“So?”

Dean licks at his lips, tries to decide on the best angle to get Trish talking.

“So…I’ve also had some trouble with Gordon Walker.”

“You?” Trish’s tone is deeply scathing.

Dean nods. “He jumped me from behind. Didn’t get as far as he wanted to, but he came to my house that night. Made a scene in the hall outside. Scared my son.”

Trish’s hard expression thaws a little bit.

“I figured if enough of us went to the cops, they’d have to do something. Only people who have trouble with Walker seem to go missing.”

Trish’s face tightens again. “I haven’t seen Carmen for weeks,” she says. “Not since Walker came in here and took a shine to her. Wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

Dean writes his name and number on a beer mat. “If you do see her, give her this. Ask her to call me.”

Trish says that she will and Dean finishes his beer and then leaves.

He decides to drive past Carmen’s apartment building on his way into town and what he sees has him slamming his brakes on and pulling into the building’s carpark.

“Hey!” he barges into the building super’s office. “What the hell happened?”

The super puts down his phone and gives Dean a once over. “We had a firebombing last night.”

“Whose apartment was it?”

“Betty Rogers, but she wasn’t there. Some police came by not half an hour before it happened and she come down with them and told me she was gonna be stayin’ at her daughter’s for a few days.”

“Thank God,” Dean says fervently.

He thanks the super and walks out, dialling Benny as he goes.

“Is Betty okay?” he says without preamble as soon as his friend picks up.

“Yes, brother,” Benny says. “Safe at her daughter’s. Pissed as hell about her apartment, but grateful too. You saved her life, Dean. The firebomb was thrown through her bedroom window. If she’d’ve been there, she would’ve died.”

“Any suspects?”

“Not a one. Except for this mythical flat-faced guy everyone’s going on about.”

“Two of the four people who claim to have seen him are dead, one’s had an attempt made on her life and the other is a damn smart cop who’s in hiding. I don’t think he’s mythical, Benny, I think he’s out there killing people.”

Benny sighs. “You could be right, brother. But we’ve got zero leads.”

Dean’s pissed when he hangs up. The police clearly aren’t taking this as seriously as they should. They should be out there in force, asking questions. Or something.

Being pissed makes Dean hungry and being hungry reminds him that he told Cas he’d get some groceries.

First though, he stops and gets a burger and fries at Biggerson’s.

Dean’s next stop is Bud’s Butcher’s Shop, where he lines up behind a couple of local housewives to buy steak. He’s waiting his turn when he hears the rumble of a very noisy refrigerated truck. It parks out front and the driver gets out, leaving the engine running. Dean’s eyes widen and his stomach flip-flops when he gets a look at the driver’s face. He has a nose like Bert from Sesame Street, only even flatter.

“Who’s that?” he asks the room at large.

Bud peers out. “Oh that’s Louis,” he says. “He’s a delivery driver. He delivers fresh meat to us and fresh fish to Sal’s Fishmonger’s next door, and then he takes all our scraps and offcuts down to the pet food company, in barrels.”

“Huh,” Dean says.

He finishes paying for his steak and then follows the flat-faced guy into Sal’s Fishmonger’s and watches him and Sal disappear out the back.

There’s a bell on the counter and Dean considers ringing it, but he doesn’t want the flat-faced guy to see him, so instead he goes around the outside of the building until he finds Sal’s office. Sal and Louis are in there having a very heated, very animated conversation. Neither of them looks happy. Eventually, Sal makes a phone call. He scowls and waves his arms around a lot and eventually slams the receiver down hard.

He stalks from the office, with Louis following behind. Dean waits a couple minutes and when neither of them returns he goes and sits in his car to think about what he’s just seen.

He thinks it’s a pretty safe bet that the guy with the flat nose is the missing witness and dollars to doughnuts the refrigerated truck is the noisy truck that pissed off the guy in the terrace house opposite Carmen’s apartment block. The neighbor had mentioned the guy moving the truck. Maybe he moved it to right below Carmen’s bedroom window. Maybe he dropped her body and himself down on top of it; it wouldn’t have been too much of a drop. Maybe he then put her on ice inside the refrigerated truck.

What does Sal have to do with it though? He’s just a fishmonger.

Dean watches as the delivery driver comes from around the back of the fishmonger’s carrying a barrel on a two-wheeled hand trolley. He loads it into the truck and then disappears again, coming back a moment later with another barrel, which he also loads into the truck. Finally, he goes to the front door of Sal’s Fishmonger’s and turns the _open_ sign to _closed_.

Dean stares, open-mouthed.

What the Hell? Did he miss Sal coming out? Is he already in the truck?

Sal’s nowhere in sight. The store’s closed. And Louis is leaving.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Dean mutters to himself.

That bad feeling tells him that he probably shouldn’t let Louis out of his sight, so when the truck pulls away, Dean follows, at a discreet distance.

He follows Louis down the I-69 to a Midwest Freight Transport Depot just outside of Delaware, Oklahoma. The truck pulls inside and Dean keeps going past until he gets to a Love’s Travel Stop just a little way up the road. Love’s is a truck stop-cum-gas station, with a pretty big mini-mart, a shower and restroom block, a Coffeyhouse Café and a Subway restaurant.

Dean finds a parking spot and calls Cas.

“I’m at Love’s Travel Stop on I-69,” Dean tells him. “I think I’ve found the missing witness.”

He briefs Cas on what he saw down at Sal’s Fishmonger’s, his suspicions about the refrigerated truck and the fact that said truck is now at the Midwest Freight Transport Depot just back up the road a ways.

“I can see the Depot’s front gate from here,” Dean says, “so I’ll know if it leaves.”

“I’m coming,” Cas says. “Stay where you are.”

Dean goes into Love’s and makes his way to the Coffeehouse Café section. He gets a large caramel macchiato to go and a slice of their apple pie. 

He’s just settled back in his car when a red Porsche Boxster pulls into the Midwest Freight Transport Depot. Dean’s too far away to see who’s at the wheel, but it looks like the exact same car that drove away from his apartment building after the incident with Walker. 

A fishmonger, a truck driver and a boxer all meeting up at a Transport Depot in the middle of nowhere? It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. What the fuck is going on?

Ten minutes later, the Porsche drives away again.

Ten minutes after that, Cas pulls up beside him riding Gabriel’s Road King. Dean tries not to think about how hot he looks wearing motorcycle leathers and aviator sunglasses.

The two of them walk over to the Transport Depot and slip inside. The front gate is automated and slides open when it senses traffic. There doesn’t seem to be any security at all. There is a weigh station and a portable office over to one side, but the man inside has his feet up on the desk and doesn’t seem inclined to turn away from his television screen.

There are only half a dozen trucks parked in the depot so it doesn’t take Dean and Cas long to find the one they’re looking for. Neither Louis nor Sal seems to be around.

“You sure they didn’t leave in the Porsche?” Cas asks.

Dean shrugs. “The windows are tinted and I wasn’t exactly close. But the Boxster’s a two-seater, so there should be at least one person still here.”

Cas puts his hand on the side of the truck and then goes and has a look at the thermostat controls for the refrigeration unit.

“What’s it set at?” Dean asks.

“Twenty.”

Dean raises an eyebrow. “That’s cold. You think they’re trying to freeze something in there?”

Cas just nods. He tries all the truck’s doors, but they’re locked. “I’ll go and get the crowbar from my car,” he says.

Dean clears his throat and takes the lock-pick set out of his inside jacket pocket.

“Or I could just pick the lock?”

Cas’s lips thin, but he gives Dean the go-ahead.

Cas stands close behind Dean, literally breathing down his neck while he does it. It only takes Dean a few short seconds to spring the lock and Cas’s arms come around him from behind.

“You really did have a misspent youth, didn’t you?” he murmurs, his hands sliding down to Dean’s ass.

Dean snorts. “Save it for when we’re not breaking into someone’s truck, pal,” he says, sliding back the bolt and pulling the thick insulated door open.

It takes a moment for Dean’s eyes to adjust to the darkness of the truck’s interior. When they do, he sees large empty meat-hooks hanging from the ceiling, several barrels, like the one he’d seen Louis wheel out of Sal’s earlier, and frosted walls. He hauls himself up into the truck and Cas follows him. The frigid air hurts Dean’s throat and it takes him a moment to spot the legs, right up the back of the truck, in the darkest corner.

‘Oh shit,” he says. “That’s Louis.”

Louis is spreadeagled on his back, unseeing eyes wide open. There’s a small red dot in the center of his forehead and a trickle of blood running down his temple.

Cas comes and stands beside him. “Yep, that’s the missing witness. Fuck.”

He rubs a hand over his chin. “Wait here. I’ve gotta go get something from my car. Don’t touch anything.”

Dean stands and stares at Louis’s body. It’s been a while since he last saw one, but he saw more than his fair share when he and Sam were being dragged around by their father. People say the dead look like they’re sleeping, but Dean has never thought so. They look dead. Empty. Their soul has gone or maybe just their animation. Either way, whatever it is that made them human is no longer there. They’re just meat.

Dean sure hopes no one comes by and sees him standing in a truck with a dead body; it’ll probably make him seem suspicious.

Luckily, Cas isn’t gone long. He comes back with a crowbar and two pairs of disposable gloves. He hands one pair to Dean and puts the other pair on himself.

“Don’t wanna contaminate the evidence,” he says.

Cas squats down and goes through Louis’s pockets. He doesn’t find a gun, but he does find the keys to the truck.

“Here,” he hands them to Dean. “Go check in the cabin. I’m looking for Creedy’s gun. I figure Louis must’ve picked it up and made off with if after I got knocked out. I’m hoping he still has it.”

Dean takes the keys and climbs inside the cabin of the truck. He searches the interior and the glovebox, but all he finds that’s of any interest is a commercial parking permit for Gulfport Municipal Marina and a card with a dock number for a boat called _Sal’s Gal_. He takes them to show to Cas.

When Dean returns to the back of the truck, Cas has pried the lids off the two barrels and is standing silently, staring down.

“What is it?” Dean asks.

“Carmen and Sal.”

Dean comes and stands beside him. “Jesus. You think Carmen’s been in Sal’s freezer all this time?”

Cas shrugs. “Guess so. Maybe he was getting ansty about it. Maybe they were scared he’d blab so they did him too.” 

Dean shows Cas the parking permit and card he found in the glovebox.

“Huh,” Cas say. “That makes sense. Take the bodies out to the boat in barrels and dump’em at sea. Doesn’t help me much though,” he picks up one of the lids and reseals Carmen in the barrel. “I’m still down a witness and the gun that proves I didn’t shoot an unarmed man,” he wipes his hands on his pants. “Basically, I’m screwed?”

Dean frowns, staring at the white handprints on Cas’s black pants.

“Uh Cas? What’s that white stuff?”

Cas looks down at his thigh and then examines the lid of the barrel closely. He drags a finger through a deposit of white powder pooled in the lid and then licks at his finger.

“Holy shit,” he says. “That’s heroin.”

“You sure?”

“Oh yeah. I’ve seen a lot of it.”

He meets Dean’s eyes and grins. “All this time I’ve been thinking this was just about protecting Walker. Now I’m not so sure. I think this might be all about drugs,” he nods at the card in Dean’s hand. “I think we might’ve found ourselves a drop boat. Bodies out, fish and heroin in.”

Dean frowns. “A drop boat? That’s a small boat that goes out to meet a bigger one and pick up something that they don’t want to go through customs, right?”

Cas nods. “That’s right. For months now, we’ve been getting tips that large quantities of heroin are traveling on ships coming into major US ports. The DEA and Customs have been working overtime and coming up empty,” he holds his finger in the air for inspection. “I think this could be the reason. By the time the ships sail into a major US port, the heroin’s already been off loaded, one fishing boat at a time, at a whole lot of different marinas all along the coast,” he shakes his head. “It’s brilliant. A little fishing boat like _Sal’s Gal_ goes out of a smaller marina and comes back with some fish, it’s not gonna look suspicious and raise any red flags and there’s no Customs there, no one who’s going to inspect the catch and realize that there are several pounds of heroin at the bottom of the fish crate. Times that one boat by twenty and you can get millions of dollars’ worth of product into the country, completely undetected.” 

Dean whistles. “That’s pretty smart. So you think one of the bags broke? Pretty sloppy, huh, leaving all that incriminating evidence just lying around.”

Cas shrugs. “Eh, people who work with drugs all the time tend to get careless about them. You wouldn’t believe the shit people leave in full view in apartments and garages. Besides, the boat belongs to Sal, and chances are Sal wasn’t along for the ride. That way if the boat gets busted, Sal says he loaned it to a friend. He didn’t know it was being used for illegal activities.”

“You think this is why there’s been so much pure heroin in Coffeyville lately?”

Cas nods. “Yup. When you can bring in large quantities and eliminate the couriers, you have good availability at low overhead. The cost on the street goes down and the purity goes up.”

“So how does Walker fit in with all of this? And why did he shoot Sal and Louis?”

Cas shrugs. “Tying up loose ends? I dunno, Dean. What I do know is that I’m pretty screwed right now. My witness is dead and if I can’t find the missing gun with a handy latent print on it, it means there’s no way to prove I didn’t shoot an unarmed man.”

Cas looks despondent and Dean can’t help trying to comfort him.

“There’s plenty of reasonable doubt, Cas. We’ve found Carmen’s body, we’ve found the witness’s body, and we can put Walker at the scene. We’ve potentially uncovered a major drug trafficking operation. There’s no way you’ll be convicted.”

Cas’s mouth is a grim line. “Maybe not, but they’ll keep me in custody until the end of the trial. That could mean over a year on remand, even if I’m not found guilty.”

Dean doesn’t like the sound of this. It sounds like Cas is planning to go on the run for real.

“Maybe not,” Dean begins, but he’s cut off by Cas’s disbelieving snort.

“You’ve gotta trust the system, Cas,” he tries. “You trust Sam, don’t you? Sam’s a straight shooter.”

“It won’t be up to Sam,” Cas says, exasperated. “It’ll be up to Sam’s boss, Alastair White. And that man has his own agenda. I don’t trust him at all.”

Dean frowns. Sam’s never talked to him about his boss before, but Dean certainly never got the impression that Sam didn’t trust him. Then again, Sam is still young and idealistic. Cas’s instincts might be worth listening to, but Dean doesn’t want Cas to go on the run for real, because he’s not sure he’d be able to find him if he did.

And Dean really needs that ten grand.

“Cas,” he says. “With all the evidence we _do_ have, it’d look bad if you still went on the run. It’d make you look guilty. Like you had something to hide. Do you really want to be in hiding for the rest of your life? Think of your mom.”

Cas snorts again. “You don’t give a shit about my mom. You don’t even like my mom. You just want to collect your ten grand fee.”

“I do,” Dean nods. “Because without it, I’m gonna get my electricity cut off, and then I’m gonna get evicted and then I’m gonna lose access to Ben. I need that fee. And all you’ve gotta do is trust the system that you’re a part of.”

Cas shakes his head. “The system sucks. Also? Do you have any idea how many guys I’ve put away? Prison is not a good place for a cop. Sorry, Dean, but I’ve gotta take off.”

Dean scowls. “Dude, we had a deal!”

“That was before my witness turned up dead. That was before Walker started cleaning house! We’re both in danger, Dean, and I can’t protect you from Walker if I’m in prison!”

“Okay, one, I don’t need your protection. Two, we’ve got enough to get Walker arrested, so he won’t be around to do any more ‘cleaning house’.”

Cas shakes his head. “I’m not letting you take me in, Dean. And you can’t take me in without my cooperation. You’re not properly trained and you’re sure as Hell not good enough.”

Dean nods. He doesn’t argue. He’s been slowly shuffling toward the truck’s rear door throughout the conversation and now he jumps down off the tailgate and gives Cas a shit-eating grin.

“I don’t need to be good,” he says, swinging the door shut just as understanding begins to dawn in Cas’s eyes.

“I just need to shut this here door,” he slams the bolt home moments before Cas throws his body against the closed door, fists hammering, yelling obscenities.

Dean presses his cheek against the cold metal. “I may be a High School drop-out with no formal training, you arrogant jerk, but I got plenty of give’em hell attitude to make up for it.”

He adjusts the truck’s temperature to forty, because Cas might be an arrogant jerk, but Dean doesn’t want him to freeze to death during the trip to the Coffeyville police station, and he figures forty should be cold enough to keep the bodies chilled.

He climbs into the truck’s cabin, puts the keys in the ignition and pulls out of the Midwest Freight Transport Depot. On the way down the I-69 he calls Benny to let him know that he’s bringing Cas in. He doesn’t give him any details, just tells him that he’ll be there in about half an hour and it would be nice if he could be waiting for him, maybe with a few uniforms.

\--

Benny is there when Dean pulls the truck around to the back entrance of the police station; along with half the precinct.

Dean hops down from the truck’s cabin and grins at Benny. “Good thing you brought a lot of back up. I think Detective Novak might be pissed at me.”

Benny eyes Dean suspiciously and then looks at the back of the truck, his eyes widening. “You’ve got him in the back of the truck?”

Dean nods. “Yeah. And he ain’t alone.”

One of the uniforms pulls back the bolt. The door flies open and Cas launches himself out of the truck and straight at Dean.

“You crazy goddamn sonofabitch!” Cas yells, colliding with Dean and taking him down to the asphalt. “When I get outta here, I’m coming after you! I’m gonna make you pay, Winchester!”

It takes four uniforms to haul Cas off of Dean and Benny laughs the whole time.

Finally, they’re able to wrestle him through the back door and into the station.

“Maybe I should wait out here,” Dean says. “You know, just until he calms down.”

“Yeah,” Benny is looking thoughtfully inside the truck. “Maybe you could walk me through this, brother?”

Dean explains about Walker and Sal and the boat and the drugs. He explains about the missing witness and Carmen calling Cas because she had some big information to pass on and how they think she might’ve known about the drug trafficking and wanted to use that knowledge for protection from Walker.

Finally, by the time they’re done, Cas has been processed and Dean is able to go inside and pick up his body receipt from the docket lieutenant without risking setting Cas off again.

Benny gives him a lift out to Love’s to pick his car up and then Dean goes straight to the office to pick up his ten grand check from Rowena. He puts it into his bank account and goes home. As soon as the check clears he’ll be able to pay his rent and his electricity bill, he’ll be able to really stock up on good food, and he won’t have to worry about being able to afford his child support payments for a while.

It’s a good feeling.

Not so good is the knowledge that Cas is in custody right now because of him.

Sure, Cas had been an arrogant jerk and rubbed Dean’s lack of formal qualifications in his face, taunted him that he wasn’t good enough, but Dean can see where he was coming from. In Cas’s shoes, he wouldn’t want to be in prison either. And Dean doesn’t trust the system a whole lot himself, even if he is now, sort of, part of it.

Dean goes and gets himself a beer out of the fridge. He sits down on his sofa, put his feet up and wonders if he can afford to re-connect his Netflix. He picks up his remote control and is just about to switch on the television when a gentle tap, tapping attracts his attention. What is that? He cocks his head.

A draft ruffles his hair and Dean freezes. Is there a window open? He stands up and looks around. Dean’s pretty sure he didn’t leave any windows open. Maybe Cas did though? He was last out the house today. Dean goes across to the window near the fire escape. The blinds are swaying and tap-tapping in the gentle breeze. He pulls them open. The window is completely gone, as if someone has cut it out or smashed it out and collected all the pieces.

Dean’s blood goes cold and the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

There’s someone in his house.


	6. Chapter 6

Fuck. What if Walker is hiding in his house?

Dean swallows. Where’s the taser? Where the fuck did he leave the taser?

The gun Cas gave him is in the Impala’s glovebox, where he left it when he took Cas in to the precinct. Dean had been happy enough to stroll into The Buckeye Street Gym and The Red with it tucked down the back of his jeans, but cops tended to get upset about people carrying concealed without a permit. 

The taser, he last saw on the kitchen counter. Maybe Cas put it away? Dean silently curses himself and makes himself a promise to be more diligent about his weapons in future. His dad was always meticulous about his guns and knives and Dean is pretty sure the old man would’ve tanned his hide good for being so careless with his weapons.

Dean’s going to have to improvise, which is fine. It’s something he’s good at. He picks up a nice sharp knife from his knife block and turns in a slow circle.

If I were a rapist, Dean thinks, where would I hide?

He edges cautiously toward his bedroom.

“Hello, Dean,” a shadowy shape emerges into the open bedroom doorway and Dean gapes as the figure becomes clear.

“ _Marv Clerk_? What are you doing here?”

“Good question.”

Marv flips on the light switch and Dean’s eyes widen as he spots the gun in Marv’s hand.

“I ask myself that question all the time,” Marv says. “How did it come to this? I’m a decent man, you know? I try to do what’s right.”

“Doing what’s right is good,” Dean agrees.

Marv nods. “But it’s not always possible, is it, Dean? _You_ know that. Morningstar told us how you did some whoring when you were a kid.” He frowns. “I don’t see the attraction myself, but then I’m not a fag.”

Nice, Dean thinks.

“Morningstar thought you might go back on the game when times got tough,” Marv continues, “But I guess you’re not young and pretty enough anymore.”

“Guess not.”

Marv strokes at his chin. “Guess being broke is what drove you to work for that weirdo scumbag Crowley.”

“Exactly. Desperate times and all that.”

“You and me, we’re sort of alike. We do what we have to do to hang in there.”

Dean doesn’t think that he and Marv have much in common, but he’s not about to argue with a guy who’s pointing a gun at him. “I guess we do.”

“You follow the fights?”

Dean blinks at the change in topic. “Not lately.”

Marv sighs. “A manager like me waits a whole lifetime for a decent fighter to come along. Most managers die without ever getting one.”

“But you got one. You got Walker.”

“I took Gordon in when he was just a kid. Fourteen years old. I knew right away he was gonna be different from the others. There was something about him. Drive. Power. Talent.”

Insanity, Dean thinks. Don’t forget insanity.

“Taught him everything he knows about boxing. Gave him all my time. Made sure he ate right. Bought him clothes when he had no money. Let him sleep in the office when his mother was crazy on crack.”

“And now he’s champ,” Dean says.

Marv’s smile is tight. “It’s my dream. All my life I’ve worked for this.”

Dean nods. “Except Gordon’s out of control, isn’t he?”

Marv sags against the doorjamb. “Yeah. He’s totally out of control. He’s gonna ruin everything … all the good times, all the money. I can’t tell him anything, anymore. He won’t listen.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“Ahh,” Marv sighs. “That’s the big question. And the answer to that question is: diversify. I diversify, I make a shitload of money and I get out.”

Dean cocks his head. “Diversify? I don’t get it.”

“It means I gotta find other ways of making money. It means I take the money I make on Walker, and I invest it in other businesses. A chicken franchise, a laundromat, maybe even a fishmonger’s shop. Maybe I can get a fishmonger’s shop real cheap because the guy who owns it can’t make good on some bad bets he made.”

“Sal.”

“Yeah. Sal. You got Sal real upset today. Bad timing, the way you walked in just when Louis got there, but I guess in the end it’s gonna work out okay.”

“I didn’t realize Sal knew me.”

“Are you kidding? This here’s a small town. And you,” Marv waves at him. “You got the leather jacket, the cool car, the swagger. Maybe you’ve only been back in town a year, but people’ve been watching you. _Everyone_ knew you’d fallen on hard times. Morningstar’s been hopin’ you’d come to him for help, if not to whore for him, then something else. Muscle maybe. He’s wanted you on his payroll for a long time. He ain’t happy you went to Crowley instead.”

Dean wonders why Morningstar didn’t just put the hard word on him, like he did when Dean was eighteen. Maybe he doesn’t want to antagonize Sam, now that Sam’s an ADA.

Whatever, Dean can worry about that later; right now he just wants to keep Marv talking.

“So Sal was worried that I spotted Louis,” he says, taking a couple of tiny steps closer to Marv.

“Yeah. So, he called me, said he wanted out, said Carmen couldn’t stay in his freezer any more, said we couldn’t use his boat any more. So I told him okay. And then I texted Louis and told him to put a bullet in the fucker and bring both him and Carmen down to the Depot. There’s a drop coming in the day after tomorrow, and I’m thinking maybe I’m going to have to do Louis because he’s such a fuck-up. The guy can’t do anything right. He lets people see him at Carmen’s, then he has to take care of them. He only gets two out of three. He can’t find Castiel. The dumb shit found Castiel’s car in your parking lot and didn’t stop to think maybe Castiel wasn’t driving it, so he ends up roasting Tim Cain. Now you’ve got Louis fingered. I figure his time is up.”

Marv sighs.

He seems to like the sound of his own voice, seems keen to tell Dean his story, so Dean prompts him, trying to sound like he’s really interested in the tale; which, actually, he is and not just because he’s trying to buy as much time as he can. He takes another half step forward. “So what happened then?”

“So then I borrow Walker’s car, and I go to the Depot, and on the way I see your car at the gas station, and I get a brilliant idea. Marv, I say to myself, this is your way out.”

Dean frowns. “Out of what?”

“Out of the whole fucking mess. See, there’s something you got to understand about me. I gave up a lot for the fight game. I never got around to getting married or to having a family. All my life I never had anything but boxing. When you’re young, you don’t mind. You keep thinking there’s time. But then one day you wake up, and you find out there’s no more time.

“I thought I had a golden ticket in Walker, but what I’ve actually got is a fighter who likes to hurt people. Badly. It’s a sickness. There’s something messed up in his head, and I can’t make it better. I know he’s not gonna go the count on his career, so I take the money we make, and I buy a couple properties. Next thing I know, I got Nick Morningstar telling me he’s got a better way to make money. Drugs. I make the buy, I use Sal’s boat to pick up the product under the guise of picking up fresh fish, Nick’s organization does the distribution, I wash the money through the fights. We do this for a while and it works real good. All we have to do is keep Walker out of jail so we can launder the money.”

“Right,” Dean nods; takes another half step. “Only Walker’s escalating.”

Marv sighs again. “Yeah he is, I don’t know how long I can keep him outta jail. I’ve got a lot of money now, enough to retire, but even though I want out, I can’t get out. The organization’s got me by my gonads, you know what I mean?”

Dean nods. “Yeah. Once Morningstar gets his hooks into you, it can be hard to get clear.”

“Oh boy,” Marv rolls his eyes. “Ain’t that the truth? But I’ve found a way, Dean, and it’s all thanks to you!”

“Wow,” Dean says. “Really? That’s awesome,” he fakes admiration and lets it shine in his eyes. “How did you do that?”

Marv beams and Dean decides that Gordon isn’t the only one who’s ten kinds of crazy.

“So I’m going down the road to whack Louis,” Marv says, “And I see your big black car sitting down at Love’s, and I get a plan. Suppose, after I whack Louis, I leave some high-quality heroin spilled on the barrels so the cops figure out the operation and shut it down? Now no one’s left to talk about me behind my back, and I’m too risky for Morningstar to use for a while. The best part is that Sal and Louis get pinned on Walker, thanks to you. I’m sure when you made your statement to the cops you told them all about seeing Walker drive in to the depot when you were parked at Love’s. Brilliant, eh? I should write crime fiction!”

“Really smart,” Dean agrees, edging himself a little closer again. “But I still don’t understand why you’re here, holding me at gunpoint?”

“Because I can’t risk Walker talking to the cops. Because maybe they’re gonna come to the conclusion he really is as dumb as he looks. Or maybe he’s gonna tell them I borrowed his car and what if they believe him? So I’m going to have to get rid of him too. Then there’s no Walker, no Sal, no Louis.”

“Makes sense,” Dean says. “Still not getting why you decided to involve me in all this?”

Marv giggles. “Well you’re going to have a starring role, Dean. I called Walker when I heard your keys in the door, told him you’d changed your mind, that you were ready and waiting for him. That you wanted it rough.”

Dean swallows. “Is this what happened to Carmen?”

“Christ, Carmen was a mercy killing. I don’t know how she ever made it home. By the time we heard about it she’d already called Novak.”

Dean’s blood turns to ice and he has to supress a full body shudder at the thought of what Carmen must’ve gone through. “Now what?”

Marv leans back against the wall. “Now we wait.”

“For Walker to get here and attack me? You’re just gonna stand there and watch that?”

Marv pulls a face. “Of course not, Dean. I’m not a psycho. I’ll turn my back while he does his thing. You’ll try to fight him off, of course, but he’s stronger and heavier than you; he’ll end up strangling you to keep you quiet. And then I’ll stab him with that big knife you’re holding, but alas! Too late to save you! By the time the police show up, you’ll both be dead, and there’ll be no more loose ends.”

“Good plan,” Dean nods. “You really would make a great writer, Marv. Just…one small plot hole. You forgot this part…”

And Dean throws himself at Marv, pinning him against the wall and then thrusting the knife up under his rib cage. Marv gasps and grasps at the knife, but it’s too little, too late. There’s blood in between Dean’s fingers, running down his wrists, his forearms. Marv’s eyes roll back, his skin becomes pale and waxy and he slumps to the floor.

Dean lets go of the knife and staggers backwards.

He just killed someone. 

Holy fuck.

He looks down at his hands, sticky and red. His heart is pounding in his chest. He hears a noise behind him and turns.

Gordon Walker is coming through the broken window. Dean turns back to Marv…to the body…and bends over to pull out the knife, but Gordon is fast for a big guy and he’s barrelling into Dean before Dean’s had a chance to pull the knife clear.

“Pretty boy likes to play rough,” Gordon sing-songs as he grabs Dean around the waist and throws him to the floor. “Gonna fuck you good. Then I’m gonna gut you with that knife. Then I’m gonna fuck you again.”

Dean gets up on his hands and knees and tries to scramble away, but Walker hooks his feet and drags him backward. He crawls onto Dean’s thighs and croons—terrible, insane words of blood and rape and death, lovingly whispered into Dean’s ear. Dean rears back again and again, trying to smash the back of his head into Walker’s face, but Walker stays just out of reach. Eventually he tires of Dean’s antics and punches the side of his head. Dean goes down, dizzy and disoriented. The boxer packs one hell of a punch.

Walker rolls Dean onto his back and undoes his fly. Dean grabs him by the wrists and Walker leans down and licks Marv’s blood off the back of Dean’s hand.

Dean bucks like a bronco trying to dislodge Walker and Walker can’t get Dean’s jeans down because he’s having to pin him down by his wrists. Eventually, Walker lets go of Dean’s left wrist and wraps his now free hand around Dean’s throat, squeezing hard. Dean claws at his hand futilely. Black spots dance before his eyes and a roaring sound fills his ears.

The last thing he sees before he blacks out is his front door being kicked open and Cas and Benny charging inside with their guns drawn.

“Dean! _No_! Dean!” he hears Cas cry, panicked, and then the world is mercifully dark and quiet.

\--

When Dean comes around he’s lying in a hospital bed with an oxygen mask on his face. He turns his head and finds Ellen and Sam in visitors’ chairs beside his bed. Bobby’s in his wheelchair next to them.

“Dean!” Sam exclaims, leaping forward to help Dean extricate himself from the oxygen mask. “How are you feeling?”

Dean swallows and rubs at his neck. “Throat hurts.”

His voice is raspy.

“You were lucky,” Ellen says.

Her eyes are wet and red. So are Sam’s.

“How long was I out?”

“You started to come around in the ambulance, but they put you under again, because they weren’t sure how much damage Walker did to your neck and they didn’t want you to move around too much.”

Dean nods. “So it’s the same day?”

“Yeah.”

“Cas?”

Sam understands what he’s asking. “Benny was in charge of interviewing him. He explained about Walker and how he thought you were still in danger. He told Benny he’d wired your place up and that it could be monitored via his cell phone. He asked Benny to bring his cell phone so that he could show him how to monitor your place, keep an eye out for Walker. Benny had already put an APB out for Walker and he figured it wouldn’t hurt to be watching your place, especially as you did seem like a really likely target. So he went and got Cas’s cell phone and Cas logged onto the monitoring site, just in time for them both to witness Marv’s confession. When Marv said that he’d called Gordon to come and attack you, Benny released Cas from custody and they both raced to your place, with a couple of squad cars as back up.”

Dean nods. “And Marv?”

“Dead,” Ellen says. “And good riddance.”

“Walker?”

“In custody.”

“Cas?” Dean asks again.

“All charges dropped,” Sam says. “He’s been reinstated and as far as I know, he’s safe at home.”

Dean nods. He’d kind of been hoping that maybe he was waiting outside to visit Dean, but he guesses that would’ve been too much to ask. He did turn him in, after all. It’s not exactly good ground for building a relationship. Or even a casual sex life.

Benny comes in for a visit after Dean’s family leave. His visit is pretty much 50/50 personal visit and formal police interview. They’ve got everything that went down on tape anyway, audio and visuals, so Dean giving his statement is really just a formality.

Benny does confirm that Cas has been completely exonerated and is currently at home. Dean guesses he must look as forlorn as he feels if Benny’s kind, understanding smile is anything to go by.

“He was worried for you, brother,” Benny says. “If you want something with him, I don’t think he’d be averse to the idea.”

Dean sleeps badly that night, keeps reliving Walker’s attack and Marv’s stabbing again and again.

Ellen visits the next morning too and Jess stops by on her break. He’s not in her section, but she says she’s told his nurse that he’s her brother-in-law, so if he’s lucky he might get extra jello.

“How are you feeling today?” Ellen asks.

Dean sighs. “I dunno, Ellen. Maybe you were right. Maybe I should stay away from bounty hunting. Are they still hiring at Weiner Hut?”

Ellen snorts. “There was a drive-by shooting at Weiner Hut last night. Cas’s cousin Alfie was injured. Seems there ain’t nowhere safe these days. At least doing what you’re doing, you’ve got a chance to make the town a little safer,” Ellen toys with the edge of his blanket. “And Dean? Much as I hate to say it, you’re good at it. Just be a better man than your daddy was; make sure that Ben always comes first.”

For Dean, that’s a no brainer.

Later that day, Rowena and Crowley visit. Rowena sits by his bed and chats amicably with him for quite some time, while Crowley leans against the wall, scowling.

“I’m just stunned that ye managed to bring Castiel in,” she says finally. “Fergus says ye already knew him?”

Dean sighs. “Yeah. I sold him a cannoli once.”

Crowley chokes back a laugh. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

Dean flushes and Rowena pats him on the hand. “Don’t mind, Fergus. He’s just jealous.”

“As all hell,” Crowley agrees. He steps forward and offers Dean his hand. “You did good, kid. Welcome aboard.”

Dean’s final visitor before his doctor lets him go home is a good looking black man who introduces himself as Victor Henricksen.

“Oh,” Dean says, shaking his hand. “Crowley’s number one bounty hunter?”

Victor smiles. “That’s right. Good job bringing Castiel in and figuring out what was really going on.”

“Thanks.”

Victor watches Dean for a moment. “I know your dad,” he says finally. “I’ve worked with him a time or two. Great bounty hunter. Asshole human being.”

“Yeah,” Dean says sourly. “That’s him.”

Victor nods. “Take it easy, Winchester. I’m really looking forward to working with you in the future.”

His eyes linger on Dean in a way that’s appreciative without being leering and Dean likes what he sees too, so he gives Victor a flirty smile.

“Yeah, you too, Victor. Great to meet you. I’m sure I can learn a lot from you.”

Victor’s smile widens.

When Dean finally gets home, the crime scene tape has been removed from across his front door and someone has cleaned all the blood off the floor and tidied up.

Dean cleans out Ratus’s cage and cuts up some apple for him and then he takes a long hot shower. Re-dressed in clean jeans and a new tee-shirt, he gets himself a beer and switches on the television. He’s halfway through an episode of _Cops_ when there’s a knock at his door. He looks through the peephole and frowns.

Dean opens the door slowly, leaving the safety chain on. Cas is on the other side with a couple of pizza boxes in one hand and a six pack in the other.

“I brought you pizza,” Cas says.

“Is it Pino’s pizza?” Dean asks.

Cas nods solemnly. “Is there any other kind?”

“Not if you wanna get inside.”

Cas raises an eyebrow.

“Inside the apartment,” Dean clarifies.

“Are you gonna let me in then?”

Dean shuts the door, slides back the chain and lets Cas in.

Cas carries the pizza boxes into the living room and sets them and the six pack down on the coffee table. “What are you watching? Ooh, _Cops_. I like this show. It’s hilarious.”

Dean cocks his head to one side. “I don’t think it’s meant to be,” he opens one of the boxes and helps himself to a slice. “Meat lovers with extra pepperoni,” he nods approvingly. “You know what I like.”

“Yeah,” Cas breaks a beer out of the six pack and twists the top off. “I pay attention to things.”

He hands the beer to Dean and takes another one for himself.

They eat and drink in silence, the television humming quietly in the background.

“Good to be back at work?” Dean asks.

“Yeah, I guess,” Cas licks at his lips. “Everyone’s being really nice to me. I got back pay for the time I was suspended,” he takes another swig of beer. “Benny tell you they found Creedy’s missing gun?”

Dean shakes his head.

“It was in the barrel with Carmen. And because it’d been practically frozen all this time, Creedy’s prints were real clear. Tests showed that it jammed, just like I suspected. The going theory is that Creedy dropped it when I shot him, Louis picked it up and took it out with Carmen’s body; through the window down onto the truck, just like _you_ suspected.”

Dean raises his beer bottle and clinks it against Cas’s. “We made a pretty good team, you and me.”

Cas nods solemnly. “That we did. You think you’ll keep working for Crowley?”

Dean toys with the label on his beer bottle. “Yeah, I think I will. The hours are flexible. The work sure ain’t boring. And, okay, I’m a little rusty, but I’ll get better with practice.”

Cas snorts and shakes his head. “I’m not sure whether having you in this game is gonna make my life more interesting or make it Hell on earth.”

Dean just smirks. And then remembers something he’s been meaning to ask Cas.

“You haven’t seen my taser, have you?”

“Kitchen. Bottom drawer, right hand side. You really need to learn to keep your weapons tidy, Dean. Especially with Ben coming over for visits.”

“Yeah, I know,” he rubs a hand across the back of his neck. “Uh, Cas? I’m not sorry about turning you in, it was the right thing to do, but, uh, well, I guess I am kinda sorry that you’ve had such a hard time lately.”

Castiel stares at him with a fierce, intense expression on his face that makes Dean squirm. Last time Cas looked at him like that, Dean got laid.

Cas puts his almost-empty beer down and slides closer to Dean, so that their legs are pressed together. “I know a way you can make it up to me,” he says, putting a hand on Dean’s thigh.

Dean meets his eyes. “You’re not re-joining the Marines and moving interstate in the morning again are you?”

Cas shakes his head, his expression grave. “I’m not sorry we spent that night together, Dean. It meant a lot to me, even if I didn’t leave you with that impression. I was young and stupid back then,” he pauses, “but I want you to know that the memory of the night got me through some really tough times overseas. What I _am_ sorry for, is that I hurt you; made you feel…used.”

Dean shrugs. “You weren’t the first person to do that and you sure as shit weren’t the last. I got over it. I always get over it.”

Cas leans in close and presses his lips lightly to Dean’s. It’s a nice kiss, gentle, loving and then it heats up. Cas brings his hands up to hold Dean’s head and somehow or other Dean ends up sprawled back on the sofa, with Castiel on top of him. The gentle kisses have turned hard; demanding. Cas’s tongue duels with Dean’s and they’re thrusting against each other, desperate, hurried.

Dean reaches out and unzips Cas’s jeans and Cas pulls back.

“Bedroom,” he says. 

They stumble their way there, strip naked as fast as humanly possible and fall onto the bed, Dean on his back and Castiel, once again, on top of him. Cas stares down at him with intense, lust-filled eyes and Dean swallows.

“Lube and condoms are in the nightstand.”

For the first time, Cas looks a little uncertain. “How do you wanna do this?”

“Like last time.”

“You sure? I’m versatile, Dean. I’d be totally cool with it if you wanted to fuck me.”

Dean pulls Cas down and kisses him quickly. “Good to know,” he says. “But right now, I want _you_ to fuck _me_.”

Cas’s smile turns predatory. “You don’t have to tell me twice,” he says, rolling off of Dean and raiding the nightstand.

Dean smirks at him. “Technically, I did tell you twice.”

Cas just rolls his eyes. “Turn over for me, sweetheart.”

Dean settles on his belly, legs spread wide, while Cas preps him thoroughly. God, it’s been so long since he last did this, he’d forgotten how awesome it feels. Cas’s fingers are hitting all the right places and Dean can’t keep his hips still.

“C’mon, Cas, fuck me already,” he urges.

“So pushy,” Cas says fondly.

But he’s rolling the condom on, so Dean decides not to bitch at him.

Cas applies a generous amount of lube to his covered dick and then lines himself up, his dick a hot, blunt pressure resting against Dean’s hole; which is practically quivering in anticipation. Dean spreads his legs wider and cants his hips encouragingly and Cas begins to sink slowly inside. Dean can’t help his long drawn out moan. The stretch burns a little, but it feels good too and when Cas bottoms out, his balls resting against Dean’s ass, Dean knows it’s about to feel a whole lot better.

“You ready?” Cas asks.

“Fuck yeah,” Dean wriggles his ass and Cas bites off a moan.

Cas grips Dean’s hips and hauls him up onto his knees. He pulls back so that only the tip of his cock is still inside Dean’s ass and then he hammers back in, ruthless, relentless, nailing Dean’s prostate on every thrust. Dean could cry with how good it feels. This right here is what he’s been missing. He loves fucking women, he really does, but _God_ , he needs this too sometimes. He gets a hand on his dick and holds himself loosely, let’s Cas’s powerful thrusts do the work for him and it’s not long before he’s coming hard, with a rebel yell that causes Jim next door to bash on the wall. Cas fucks him right through his orgasm and Dean’s arms give out like wet noodles. Cas rides him down to the mattress and plows him like a jackhammer. Dean’s dick twitches and gives another spurt, his ass clenches, and Cas comes with a cry of his own.

Cas pulls out and they clean up and then lie beside each other with matching smug grins.

“So you’re gonna stick around for a while?” Dean can’t help asking.

Cas nods. “Figured I could help you get back up to speed with the whole bounty hunting thing. Maybe take you out for beer and pizza every now and then.”

“So we’d be dating?”

Cas nods. “Would that be okay?”

“Do I have to meet your mama?”

Cas rolls his eyes. “You’ve known my mama since grade school, Dean.”

Dean turns on his side. “Your mama hates me. She thinks I’m some kind of Lolita who seduced you to the dark side.”

Cas squirms and looks embarrassed. “I’ll set her straight.”

Dean nods. “Good,” he pauses. “I don’t really like Crowley’s standard business cards. I think I’m gonna have some of my own made up that say, ‘Dean Winchester: Hunter for Hire’. What do you think?”

Cas makes a so/so gesture.

Dean grins at him and bats his eyelashes like a southern belle. “Well one things for sure, my first big case, I definitely caught my man.”

Cas raises his eyebrows. “Stop talking, Dean.”

Dean sticks his tongue out. “Make me,” he challenges.

Cas rolls on top of him and silences him with a kiss.

For the first time in a while, Dean feels good about the future.

\--

Down the hall, in Missouri Moseley’s apartment, John Winchester sits with a tumbler of whiskey in his hand.

Missouri sighs. “John Winchester, I could slap you. Why won’t you go talk to your son?”

“I want to,” John says. “You have no idea how much. But I failed him so badly. I’m sure I’m the last person he wants to see.”

“What about Sam, then?”

John snorts. “I went to see Sam when he was at Stanford. Sam I _know_ wants nothing to do with me. I’m doing my best, Missouri. I picked Morningstar up when he was harassing Dean and got him sent away on a DUI. I’m keeping an eye on Sam’s boss. I’m always helping them out in the background, even if they don’t know it.”

Missouri shakes her head. “I think it’s time they _did_ know, John. In fact, I think it’s time they knew _everything_.” 

_The End_

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thank you to my tireless beta reader, Endlessevelina for once again taking time out of her busy schedule to read this for me. Thanks to the SPN Cinema mods for running this fabulous, fun challenge and thank you to everyone who reads! If you enjoyed the story, please let me know. <3


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